It was a record day for rain in Fresno and other parts of the central San Joaquin Valley on Tuesday.
The fairly strong low-pressure system sitting just south of the San Francisco Bay Area generated moisture that spread throughout the Valley and caused some roadway challenges as a daily record in Fresno was already set by noon Tuesday with 1.04 inches of rainfall.
The California Highway Patrol reported a number of vehicle spinouts, as well as a rock slide that blocked all lanes of traffic on Highway 168 near Tollhouse Road.
And in higher elevations, winter weather already arrived as snow fell along the Sierra Nevada mountains and foothills, including Shaver Lake.
“We’re getting so much moisture and with it being a cooler system cross through, we’re also getting snowfall,” said Stephen McCoy, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Hanford. “It’s tough to say if this weather has any correlation to what we will experience in the winter ahead. But it was a weather record today.”
The previous record for rain in Fresno on Oct. 14 was 0.48 inches in 1935.
In Madera, a record 0.94 inches of rain fell by noon Tuesday. The previous daily record was 0.65 inches of rain in 1957.
And in Hanford, rainfall also reached 0.94 inches by noon. The city’s previous record for rainfall for the day was 0.65 inches in 1968.
Rain was expected to last throughout Tuesday before dissipating by Wednesday morning, McCoy said.
The meteorologist added that the snowfall by mid-October in the Sierra Nevada was not considered uncommon. But seeing snow at Shaver Lake two months before Christmas was unusual.
“We haven’t had a system quite this strong since 2021,” McCoy said.