Big wind blasts through Carson Valley

High winds scrambled sections of metal fence and panels on Saturday afternoon at Great Basin Equine just south of Fairview and Highway 88.

The gusts occurred around 2:10 p.m., also knocking out power to a score of residents in southern Carson Valley when a tree tangled with power lines off Dressler Lane.

A deputy who checked on the damage said it “looked like a tornado” hit the area.

The peak wind gust recorded at Sheridan Acres a few miles northwest was 70 mph, while Fredericksburg resident Jeff Garvin recorded 50 mph at 2:04 p.m.

NV Energy responded to the outage, restoring power, with only one Carson Valley customer near Barber Way off Foothill reported without power as of 10 a.m. Sunday.

That’s in contrast to the rest of Western Nevada, where NVenergy.com is recording 2,575 customers without power on Sunday morning, including 501 in Carson City and 1,961 in Washoe County.

“Outages are caused by the heavy wind throughout Northern Nevada during the evening and overnight,” NV Energy Spokeswoman Meghin Delaney said on Sunday morning. “Northern Nevada experienced a nearly 18-hour high wind event. NV Energy is working to restore power as quickly and safely as possible for affected customers.”

For all the damage in southern Carson Valley, it was Jacks Valley that experienced some the highest windspeed in Douglas County with 79 mph, according to the National Weather Service.

Gardnerville recorded a 61 mph peak windspeed.

As of 10 a.m., all chain controls in Douglas County had been lifted. Chains or snow tires and four-wheel drive were being required on Highway 88 from Picketts Junction to Tragedy Spring and over Interstate 80.

The storm was not particularly wet, though a gauge a mile north of Genoa recorded an inch of rain and one in Nevada’s oldest town had .86 inches since Friday morning.

Heavenly Mountain Resort recorded 5 inches of additional snowfall over the same time, with a seven-day total of 26 inches. Kirkwood reported 11 inches of snow since Friday morning with 19 inches over the previous week.

The forecast for the remainder of the Martin Luther King Day weekend is for mostly sunny skies and high temperatures in the upper 40s. There is a possibility of freezing fog tonight and Monday night with low temperatures around 20 degrees.

The next chance for precipitation is predicted to arrive Tuesday evening and continue until Wednesday.