"We will be monitoring levels through the weekend, communicating with our teams in real-time, and offering remote alternatives for guests in case of weather-related delays," Gaffey said.
The winery has been part of the Napa River Rutherford Reach Restoration Project, which has been working for the past several years to reduce bank erosion and flood damage.
Sonoma County
Updated, Friday, Jan. 6, 11 a.m.: Forecasters on Thursday had substantially revised their projections for the Russian River’s rise in Guerneville and now say the river is more likely to rise just 4 feet or so above flood stage by early Monday, rather than 8, The Press Demorcrat reported.
That could have meant a huge relief to residents and business owners along the lower reaches of the river, many of which are now more likely to be spared damage if projections hold true, according to the newspaper.
But on Friday morning, the forecast changed as storms lined up off the West Coast, The Press Democrat reported. Continued rain this weekend and Monday on an already saturated landscape is now expected to push the lower Russian River above 39 feet — or seven feet above flood stage — on Tuesday evening. On Thursday, the projection was for 39.7 feet by Monday.
It’s the latest in a series of fluctuating projections from the weather service’s river forecast center, which has been trying to keep up with ebbs and flows in rainfall and runoff in the 1,500-square-mile watershed.
Thousands of residents along the river and its tributaries between Healdsburg and Jenner below the 40-foot level since Wednesday night have been under an evacuation warning instructing them to be prepared to evacuate if conditions warrant it.
But the storm Wednesday night and Thursday morning knocked out power to 17,830 Pacific Gas & Electric Co. customers in Sonoma County as of 1:20 p.m. Thursday, the newspaper reported. (See a current map of local power outages.)
Marin County
With wind gusts already surpassing 101mph and rain totals expected to reach the double digits in isolated areas by this time next week, Marin County businesses and residents are not out of the woods in facing threats rising out of these back-to-back storms.
Three storms due to emerge Friday, Monday and Thursday are expected to produce 4- to 6 inches of rain in the lower elevations; and 6 to 9 inches on the Marin Highlands — with isolated areas possibly sustaining 12 inches of rain in the higher elevations, the National Weather Service reported Thursday morning.
The Bay Area is enduring a stormy weather pattern for the next few weeks.
“We are seeing the likelihood of above precipitation over the next eight- to 14-day period,” Meteorologist Dial Hoang said.
That unsettled pattern appears to be trending through January, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center forecasters laid out.
“What’s ongoing in these atmospheric events is definitely a wet pattern. It’s happened before, but the accumulation of one after another is abnormal and can increase the chance of flooding,” NOAA meteorologist Brad Pugh told the Business Journal.
Accompanying the “intense” continuous rain is wind.
The weather service clocked a wind speed over 100mph in the Nicasio Hills west of Novato; one at 90mph in the Marin Highlands northwest of San Rafael; and another at 83mph northwest of San Rafael. Collectively, five stations in Marin County reported gusts over 80mph in the last 24 hours.
The high winds have resulted in havoc for trees and power poles attached to lines. Three large swaths of power outages in Marin County west of San Rafael, Greenbrae and Larkspur amounting to about 15,000 customers in the dark were reported by Pacific Gas & Electric as of Thursday morning.
Mill Valley took the brunt of the outages, enduring the wrath of pounding rain delivering the latest road closure.
Miller Avenue at Camino Alto was closed in both directions as a result of flooding, the city police department reported.
Earlier, other road closures resulting from flooding, debris and downed power lines were reported on Shoreline Highway between Point Reyes and Tomales; Bolinas-Fairfax Road; and Lucas Valley Road, according to Marin County updates. Highway 1 was shut down between Stinson and Muir beaches due to a rockslide.
Marin County Fire’s swift water rescue unit came to the aid of Stinson Beach residents needing to evacuate encroaching storm surge.
“We have definitely saturated the ground,” Marin County Fire Battalion Chief Brett McTigue told the Business Journal, as scanner traffic blared in the background.
Beach area businesses on the Marin County coastline are feeling the pinch of fewer customers with Highway 1 remaining closed as of Thursday afternoon.