The cold snap that had San Benito County residents reaching for
warmer clothes Thursday and Friday is the first in a series of
cooling trends signaling the beginning of winter.
Forecasters with the National Weather Service said residents may
want to carry an extra sweater or jacket in the car with them
during the next week or so because the normally warm local weather
is going to get significantly cooler.
The cold snap that had San Benito County residents reaching for warmer clothes Thursday and Friday is the first in a series of cooling trends signaling the beginning of winter.
Forecasters with the National Weather Service said residents may want to carry an extra sweater or jacket in the car with them during the next week or so because the normally warm local weather is going to get significantly cooler.
“It’s going to be noticeably cooler over the next few days,” NWS Forecaster Bob Benjamin said.
He said the cold weather that blew through the county this weekend was the result of a “deep cold trough that moved in from the gulf of Alaska.”
During the rest of this week, residents can anticipate noticeable shifts in temperature from fairly warm days to winter level coldness.
“This is the time of year where we will be going back and forth for a while,” Benjamin said.
Forecasters said what is happening is most likely a noticeable shift from one season to the next.
“We’re getting our first taste of what will hopefully be the beginning of our rainy season weather pattern,” he said.
Thursday and Friday’s weather felt so cold because many people were enjoying the unseasonably warm weather that was heating things up throughout the county just a few days earlier.
“We had a very intense high pressure system which kept the temperatures unusually high,” Benjamin said.
However, forecasters said there is a slight chance of rain today and possibly Tuesday.
The same gusts of frigid arctic air that cooled things off locally are also responsible for an early winter storm that hit the Sierras during the weekend.
The storm brought a dramatic change from the 80-degree temperatures a few days earlier in the mountains.
The weather was blamed for a series of accidents on Interstate 80 involving as many as 30 vehicles, including 10 big rigs near California’s Donner Summit west of Reno.
The main highway between Nevada and northern California was shut down for more than four hours in both directions.
Many Tahoe-area ski resorts took advantage of the cold weather and cranked up snowmaking equipment to help pad whatever Mother Nature brought in anticipation of the upcoming ski season.
Chains or snow tires were required across the Lake Tahoe region, including I-80, U.S. 50 and the Mount Rose Highway southwest of Reno, for much of the day.
