A powerful winter storm slammed into the coast of California on January 3, 2008. As the low center approached the coast of Oregon its central pressure had deepened to 959 millibars, making it one of the most intense storms to hit the West Coast in nearly 10 years.
Because of the storm's shear intensity, the pressure gradient between it and the retreating high pressure center over the Rocky Mountains led to the formation of an 80 KT low-level southerly jet along the California coast, which advected deep moisture from the tropics.
The coastal mountain ranges provided more than enough forcing for convection, which led to copious amounts of rainfall on the windward slopes, and mixed the screaming winds associated with the low-level jet down to the surface, contributing to the widespread damage across the Monterey Peninsula.
During the event the Monterey County ARES activated a net on the K6LY, W6TAR, and N6SPD linked repeater systems while radio amateurs relayed storm damage information to net control and the Monterey County Emergency Operations Center in Salinas. Storm damage ranged from flooding of basements and tree damage in Carmel to widespread tree damage and power outages in Monterey and Seaside to snapped telephone poles at the north end of the county in Castroville.
A number of homes, buildings, and vehicles were either damaged or destroyed by falling trees, while some areas of Carmel, Pacific Grove, and Seaside were without electricity for four days as utility crews were stretched thin by the storm. Additional crews were brought in from southern California, which fared much better than central and northern California. Further east, up to 10 feet of snow fell in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, temporarily closing two major highways over the mountains. However, this snowfall replenished the mountain snowpack which then melts in springtime to provide much of California with drinking water.
