© Tim Reese / Scaramento BeeStorm clouds hover over the Sacramento Valley as seen from on top of Cantelow Hill in Yolo County looking east on Sunday.
By mid-afternoon Sunday, pea-sized hail was reported throughout the area - from Curtis Park to midtown to Rancho Cordova.
"We got hail here for about 10 minutes," Rancho Cordova Councilwman Linda Budge emailed The Bee. "Also thunder once. Temps dropped noticeably between noon and three."
And if you thought it was colder than usual, you were right. Sunday's daytime high of 55 was well below the normal temperature on March 18 of 67 degrees, the National Weather Service said.
Snow dropped to low levels, including Auburn, and that caused electrical problems in the region. At least 10 inches of snow fell overnight and it continued falling Sunday at the rate of about an inch an hour, adding weight to snow-laden tree limbs, which then damaged both lines and utility equipment.
Jana Morris, a spokeswoman for Pacific Gas & Electric Co. in Sacramento, said as many as 3,000 customers were without power in the utility's Sierra Division - generally the foothills and mountains east of the Sacramento Valley. By 3 p.m., about 2,000 customers remained without electricity throughout the Sierra Division, which includes El Dorado, Placer, Nevada and Sierra counties, along with the foothill portion of Yuba County.
The largest outage, which began about noon, affected just over 1,000 customers in part of El Dorado County.
That outage included areas southeast of Pollock Pines from Union Hill to the North Fork of the Cosumnes River and portions of Sly Park.
Electrical workers trying to restore service could not say when that would be accomplished.
The bright spot, however, was that 2.29 inches of rain fell between Monday and early Sunday, the weather service reported.
"We fared pretty well with these storms over the last week," said Tom Dang, NWS forecaster.
"Looking into the future, there may be a few weak lower pressure systems coming through. But there is no indication that the strong high-pressure ridge we had to deal with in January and February is recurring," he said.
He said the week of moisture laden snows in the mountains already made a difference at Folsom Lake.
Lake storage at was running about 69 percent of normal at the start of the week, Dang said. By Saturday, the level was at 87 percent.
"So, definitely, we saw some strong recovery water in Folsom Lake and, really, at all the reservoirs in Northern California," Dang said.
The week's storms also boosted seasonal rainfall totals, pushing Sacramento Executive Airport to 51 percent of normal for the season.
Dang said that latest storm system will start to wind down today.monday
Another system is expected to move into the area on Tuesday. It's not impressive, Dang said. But it could bring a light shower or two to the Sacramento Valley, and that should help keep things cool locally.
Daytime highs Monday and Tuesday are forecast in the upper 50s, reaching the mid to upper 60s Wednesday through Friday.
Here is its seven-day forecast for the region:
This Afternoon: A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 52.
Tonight: A 20 percent chance of showers before 11pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 38.
Monday: Partly sunny, with a high near 56.
Tuesday: A 20 percent chance of showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 58.
Tuesday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 45.
Wednesday: Partly sunny, with a high near 66.
Wednesday Night: A slight chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 49.
Thursday: A slight chance of showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 66.
Friday: Partly sunny, with a high near 62.
Saturday: A chance of showers. Cloudy, with a high near 61.
You know what they say about the weather in California.