Healdsburg Rain Totals, River Levels

As I’m sure you noticed, we got a real walloping of rain over the weekend — pushing the Russian River up to the 15-foot mark in the spot where they measure it in Healdsburg, just upstream of Memorial Bridge. (Twenty feet is when they start to get worried.) Weather officials are reporting around 5 or 6 inches of rain fell in Healdsburg between Friday and Monday, and they say river levels peaked in the wee hours yesterday morning. “Out of an abundance of caution,” Healdsburg city officials did open a sandbag fill station at the community center late last week. But overall, I didn’t see any reports from neighbors or newsies of bad local flooding or other rain-related disasters around here — at least nothing like over in Guerneville, where the north part of town was reportedly flooded in knee-high waters from mountain and creek runoff. They even had to close schools for the day. Here in Healdsburg, a few people did share some pretty impressive footage on Facebook of the river rising right up to the belly of both our local bridges. Looking ahead, we’ll get some more rain on and off this week, but nothing like this past weekend. Then we may be in for another full-on “atmospheric river event” next week, forecasters say. Meanwhile, the reservoirs that feed Healdsburg’s water supply — Lake Sonoma and Lake Mendocino — are filling at a healthy clip, according to Sonoma County’s water agency. “We’re all a little tired of the dreary, rainy days, but it’s good to know the rain is staying on our reservoirs,” county officials say. Their records show both pools are filled much higher than average for this time of year, and it looks Lake Sonoma actually just hit capacity. (Source: National Weather Service & NWS Climate Prediction Center via Twitter & CBS News & City of Healdsburg via Facebook & County of Sonoma via Facebook)