It’s beginning to look like Winter in California. By Sydney Welch | Staff Writer

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Sydney Welch, Staff Writer

Starting in early February, the Bay Area has experienced a variety of storms. Humidity, high winds, constant rain showers, and waves of cold air were among several unusual weather patterns. During the first week of April, a winter-like storm brought heavy rains and wind gusts to the Bay Area causing damage throughout the whole region with mudslides and power outages specifically in cities like Oakland. According to Brian Mejia, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, a consistent rainfall throughout several cities in the Bay Area such as Santa Rosa, San Francisco, Oakland, San Leandro, Mountain View and San Jose. The ranges of those rainfalls varied from 0.35 to 1.87 inches of water.

“The weather service recorded some staggering wind gusts in the Bay Area, including a high of 83 mph in Los Gatos,” Mejia said.

In Newark, those strong winds brought down several trees and power lines that also affected other parts of the Bay. Early that morning, a Newark policeman issued a shelter-in-place for several neighborhoods such as Colbert and Shorehaven Place because of downed power lines.

“Thursday night, a downed tree blocked multiple lanes of Highway 84 just east of Newark Boulevard in Newark,” according to the California Highway Patrol.

The California Department of Water Resources said on Sunday that the water level fell as the amount of water was flowing down the spillway. The amount of water flowing down the spillway went from 55,000 cubic feet a second (cfs) to 60,000 cfs Sunday afternoon in anticipation of the storm. During these recent storms, authorities across the state have dealt with overflowing creeks, mudslide threats in foothill areas blackened by fires, road collapses and hundreds of toppled trees in neighborhoods. Additionally, at least three deaths have occurred, according to the California Department of Water Resources.

Parents and students were questioning why their local schools were still open and how the schools could be endangering these students, but many of  these storms occurred on the weekends or at night pacing the storm to be gone during school hours.