Heavy Rain — Fresno, California

2019-12-01 · near Herndon, Fresno, California

Event narrative

Moderate to heavy rain caused a multiple vehicle accident on SR 99 just north of Fresno. Some of the individuals who had occupied the cars in the crash were then struck by a drunk driver which killed one of the individuals.

Wider weather episode

A large upper low pressure system dropped slowly southward off the California coast on the first two days of December. The low pulled up a fetch of deep moisture from the southwest which streamed through central California and brought periods of moderate to heavy precipitation across the area mainly from Fresno County northward. Several stations in the Sierra Nevada and adjacent foothills as well as the central San Joaquin Valley picked up between 1 and 3 inches of rain. Snow levels were high with this system and finally lowered to around 7000 feet by the time the precipitation tapered off on the 2nd. Several SNOTEL stations over the higher elevations in the Southern Sierra Nevada picked up between 6 and 12 inches of new snowfall. Further south, the precipitation was less significant with some stations picking up between a quarter and half of an inch of rain. The rainfall did produce some nuisance flooding from Fresno county northward and caused a multi vehicle accident along State Route 99 north of Fresno.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (36.8409, -119.9285)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 858720. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.