2023 Winter Storm Videos
By Alejandro Lopez
New Year's Day wasn't much of a holiday for District 4 maintenance crews and their support staff as the new year was rung in by an atmospheric river which arrived like a rowdy but welcome guest – after all, California needed the rain after several years of drought – but eventually overstayed its visit, causing flooding, landslides, sinkholes, downed trees and other disarray to state highways.
The New Year's atmospheric River, or Bomb Cyclone, call it what you will, brought historic one-day rainfall totals. But that was just for starters. As the months progressed, the storms continued to rake the Bay Area, making it a season of historic rainfall.
Route 84 in Niles Canyon in Fremont was the forerunner, the first highway closed by a storm – impassable due to flooding, mudslides, downed trees, and power lines.
During the first four days of 2023, Caltrans closed U.S. Highway 101 in South San Francisco because of flooding. We also closed I-880 in Oakland, I-580 in Castro Valley, Route 12 in Sonoma, and Route 92 in Half Moon Bay.
February and March brought cold weather and snow to places where it's rarely seen.
2023 Winter Storm Damage
2023 Bay Area Snow
Caltrans closed State Route 17 in the Santa Cruz Mountains after a snowstorm. State Route 29 near Calistoga was closed for several days due to a record snowfall.
As another round of storms descended in mid-March, El Camino Real in Burlingame was closed after rain and wind uprooted 120-year-old eucalyptus trees, which felled powerlines, fences, and traffic lights. Several of the giant trees lay sprawled across El Camino itself.
High winds toppled a big rig in late March on the Bay Bridge's lower deck, closing the eastbound bridge for hours.
Potholes were a problem—a big one. In January, Caltrans filled over 8,000 potholes in Bay Area roads. Statewide, Caltrans filled over 85,000 potholes in the first four months of 2023, an incredible amount of unscheduled work. Some areas were so riven with potholes that Caltrans elected to pave sections of the road rather than take the piecemeal approach of filling individual potholes.
Of course, the earth doesn't stop moving in the hilly Bay Area when the rain stops falling. Slides and slip-outs continued throughout the spring as stormwater descended below the topsoil and loosened the underlying layers, creating new landslides.