• Which parts of Healdsburg and the rest of Sonoma County were hit hardest by the historic rainstorm that just passed through

• What’s next on the weather front

• Out in the Dry Creek Valley, some recent dive-bar antics for the ages (see “Pics of the Week” section)

• All the fun events happening in town through next weekend, including a paint party led by an Indigenous artist at the library and a whole host of festive holiday shenanigans (see “What’s Happening?” section)

• And more, always more! 💚

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YOUR LOCAL WEATHER

• Today ️🌦️ Partly sunny with rain on and off. 🌡️ High 58° Low 40°
• Sunday 🌧️ Rainy and windy. 🌡️ High 56° Low 44°
• Monday 🌧️ More rain. 🌡️ High 57° Low 44°
• Tuesday 🌧️ More rain likely. 🌡️ High 58° Low 37°
• Wednesday 🌤️ Mostly sunny with a small chance of rain. 🌡️ High 61° Low 36°
• Thursday 🌤️ Mostly sunny for Thanksgiving. 🌡️ High 61° Low 37°
• Friday 🌤️ Mostly sunny; chance of rain returning. 🌡️ High 63° Low 38°

AIR OVER HEALDSBURG

This is what the sky above Healdsburg looks like today. (Photo: Holly Wilson)

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TODAY’S TOP STORY

A historic storm just rocked Healdsburg

In case you haven’t noticed, it’s been raining. Hard. So hard, that all sorts of flooding, mudsliding and other havoc has unfolded across Healdsburg and environs over the past four days.

In the time since a “bomb cyclone” mated with an “atmospheric river” and started unleashing its waters on Healdsburg in the wee hours Wednesday morning, we’ve gotten around 16 inches of rain in town and up to 22 inches in the hills west of town, according to our local office of the National Weather Service — much more rain than originally predicted. This deluge has shattered multiple daily rainfall records at the Sonoma County Airport in northern Santa Rosa (the closest spot to Healdsburg where they keep these kinds of historical records, as far as I can tell), and has amounted to monthly rain totals about three times the norm for November, weather officials say. We’ve now gotten more than half our average rainfall for the entire year, in a matter of days.

Here’s what the storm looked like from space, with radar showing the “total precipitable water” in the atmosphere:

“Note the plume of increased moisture stretching from the subtropics directed at the Golden State,” says the National Weather Service. (Photo: NWS Sacramento via X)

And here’s what this “plume of increased moisture” meant on the ground in Healdsburg, in order of occurrence:

• After 24 hours of relentless rain and wind, our low-lying streets, lots and pathways started flooding on Thursday morning. In particular, those in close proximity to Foss Creek, which jumped its banks and inundated the surrounding area. By early afternoon, one neighbor posted pics on Facebook of their dog peering onto the fully flooded Foss Creek Pathway near the skate park, which looked more like a lake at that point. Throughout the day, city officials closed Grove Street from Foss Creek Circle to North Street, North from Grove to the freeway, Larkspur Drive from Grant Street to Marigold Way and Allan Court and Moore Lane behind City Hall. (Parts of Parkland Farms, too.) Water was creeping into wheel wells, so the traffic signs went up.

Thursday afternoon outside Healdsburg City Hall, at Grove and North streets. (Images: Alan Zaragoza/Facebook)

• Elsewhere in town, at least one resident reported severe flood damage to their home on Thursday. A woman who lives near 7 Eleven on Healdsburg Avenue posted photos of the devastation in the “What’s Happening Healdsburg” Facebook Group. She wrote: “We’ve been here for years and have never seen anything like this. This all happened within 1.5 hours. Checked downstairs at 10:30 then by 12:00 we had no time to do anything. We had pumps and sand bags. With the pumps, we had no where to put the hose because the water was surrounding our whole entire house.” 

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• That same afternoon, Press Democrat photographer Kent Porter took a crazy photo of Healdsburg resident Vanessa Maclure wading through West North Street floodwaters while clutching her little dog Kirby. She had just picked the dog up from the groomer, the PD reported, and “flash flooding prevented her from driving a vehicle down the flooded roadway.”

• Come early Friday morning, a waterlogged chunk of Fitch Mountain mud had broken loose and slid down into the road, along Madrone Avenue. The mudslide “sent debris tumbling onto a Healdsburg property, prompting officials to quickly cordon off the area,” the Press Democrat reported. “By 11:30 a.m., public works crews were on-site, evaluating the extent of the damage and planning their next steps.” 

Friday’s mess on Fitch Mountain. (Video: Press Democrat via YouTube)

• Also on Friday, with a dozen-plus roads closed across Sonoma County, at least one driver had to be rescued from that notorious network of rural roads just south of Healdsburg and east of Windsor, near Mark West Creek, known for quickly flooding whenever the rain really starts coming down. A scary Press Democrat photo showed Leticia Lezama sitting in her disabled car as crews worked to rescue her from floodwaters on Slusser Road. A mom from Ukiah actually died around there in another rainstorm two years back, after getting trapped in her car on nearby Trenton-Healdsburg Road. Different outcome this time, luckily...

• The Russian River kept rising rapidly throughout the storm, of course. By Friday afternoon, it had surged passed flood level at Digger’s Bend, one of the two spots where officials measure it in Healdsburg — peaking around 3pm at just over 30 feet. And at the other measuring spot downstream, near Badger Park, the 3pm peak was 20 feet (just shy of the official danger zone). Now, nearly 24 hours later, river levels near Digger’s and Badger are back down to around 22 feet and 15 feet, respectively, and still dropping steadily as we speak.

Healdsburg resident Tessa Kraft took these photos just two hours apart from the west bank of the Russian River near Memorial Bridge on Friday afternoon. “The benches disappeared!” she wrote on Facebook. “The Russian River is rising fast!” (Photos: Tessa Kraft)

Another local, Nina Griesert, took this shot a mile or so upstream, near Badger Park, the day prior. She said the old “gravel bridge base” that sits at this spot in the river, normally jutting well out of the water, was totally submerged. (Photo: Nina Griesert)

Nina also spotted this crawdad on the move! Word is, they like to migrate during periods of heavy rain. (Photo: Nina Griesert)

• Other parts of Sonoma County got hit even worse by this historic storm. Multiple schools in south and west county sent students home and closed their doors; dozens of roads were closed due to floodwaters, landslides and fallen trees; firefighters saved a lady stuck in a flooded Santa Rosa culvert, among other water rescues; hundreds of people saw their power go out; hundreds more got trapped at Sutter Health and the next-door Hampton Inn in Santa Rosa due to rising waters on surrounding streets; and the Russian River did end up flooding in Guerneville, where the Johnson’s Beach sign was barely visible and where the KRON4 news station spotted “several vehicles and buildings... submerged in several feet of water.” Government maps show the river is peaking in Guerneville as we speak, and should sink back down below flood levels by Sunday morning.

I think that about sums it up. If you have any additional stories or photos about the Great Rainstorm of November 2024, consider sending ’em my way so I can share with the community.

Quick flashback, for some climate contrast: It was only a month-and-a-half ago, on Oct. 1, that a San Francisco Chronicle photojournalist came to Healdsburg and documented all of us grappling with near-record triple-digit heat in early autumn. “A scorching sun soared above Healdsburg on Tuesday, paying no heed to the arrival of October, as day laborers and day trippers alike confronted a brutal heat wave,” the Chronicle reported at the time. “Workers waiting for jobs hovered in the shade before 10 a.m. as if it were still July. A panhandler perched on a roadside median strip shaded his face with a piece of cardboard. A shirtless toddler climbed out of a minivan at a Russian River park.”

Kinda spooky, right? Now, looking ahead: While there is still some light rain in the forecast over the next week, meteorologists are only predicting around an inch more sky water to accumulate through next Friday. The sun’s rays are finally reaching Earth this afternoon, and all those flood alerts have expired. So the chaos should only subside from here. In the short term, at least...

PICS OF THE WEEK

Just another night in the life of a Dry Creek barfly! A group of three young local legends rode their horses to the bar at the Dry Creek General Store just north of town earlier this month, on Friday, Nov. 8, and snapped these pics while their (very patient) rides waited out front. Here’s the full story, from Healdsburg resident Dylan Bigham: “We rode in from Healdsburg, from a house near Kinley and West Dry Creek. It probably took us 1.5 hrs to get there riding on dirt where we could, and the road some of the way! We got to the bar around 6:30 expecting no one to be there because it was a small town bar but there happen to be a BBQ there that day and was about 60 people! It was pretty funny. Everyone was really excited to say hello to the horses, River, Lainey, and Johnny. By the end of the night it was really cold, and we called our ‘Uber for horses’ as we told people haha. One of our friends picked up the truck and horse trailer from our starting point and picked all of us up to go home!” As if we didn’t love Dry Creek Bar enough already. (Photos: Dylan Bigham)

A couple of weeks earlier, on Oct. 23, Dry Creek Bar regular John Teldeschi of the Teldeschi wine family took these pics while pulling out five acres of “century-old Zinfandel vines” in the Dry Creek Valley, out of his family’s 70 acres of vineyards. (“And yes it’s true the roots do go down over 20 feet,” he wrote on Facebook.) Pulling out old vines has reportedly become a growing necessity across Sonoma County and the rest of California, as wine sales falter and grapes become tougher to sell — although some local vintners have resisted the trend. (Photo: John Teldeschi)

And a few weeks before that, on Oct. 7, the band played on during harvest for Hafner Vineyard, located in the Alexander Valley northeast of Dry Creek. “Day 1 of at least 3 picking days,” vineyard manager David Huebel wrote on Facebook. “We won't finish this week, but we'll get closer. Should be finished by the end of next week.” Harvest ended especially early this year, in somewhat of a mad scramble — thanks to that big heat wave in early fall. A few other local wineries told the Press Democrat that they lost 30 to 40 percent of their dark reds to the heat. “We definitely got clobbered at the end,” said Jim Pratt, owner of Cornerstone Certified Vineyard in the Russian River Valley to our south. “When it gets above 100 degrees, the vine shuts down. No matter how much you water, you can’t keep the berries from dehydrating, so the fruit really suffers.” On the upside, Jim and other winemakers think the grapes they did manage to pick this year might make for some “spectacular” wines, taste-wise, thanks our greater weather story arc over the past few years. (Photo: David Huebel)

WHAT’S HAPPENING?

Saturday, November 23

• Healdsburg Farmers Market in the West Plaza Parking Lot (Weekly, 8:30am-12pm)

• Healdsburg Garden Club Hosts Pop-Up Thanksgiving Plant Sale in the West Plaza Parking Lot: Flower Arrangements, Succulent-Decorated Pumpkins & More (9am-12:30pm)

• Annual Holiday Craft Fair at the Healdsburg Senior Center: Blankets, Purses, Stuffed Animals, Candles, Books & More (10am-1pm)

• St. Paul’s Church Hosts Annual Holiday Boutique: Jewelry, Collectibles, Baked Goods & More (10am-2pm)

Cottagecore delights at the St. Paul’s boutique last year. (Photo: St. Paul’s Church)

• “Tranquil Watercolor Painting Experience” at Healdsburg Atelier: Enjoy Tea, Coffee & Treats While You Paint an Olive Branch for Fall Harvest (10:30am-12pm)

• Read to a Dog at the Mini Healdsburg Library Inside the Community Center (11am-12pm)

• “Crafted at Appellation” Hosts Holiday Wreath-Making Workshop at The Setting Wines Inside Bacchus Landing (11am-1pm)

• “Exquisite Beings” Pup Adoption Event & Art Exhibit at Gallery 300 in Healdsburg (1-3pm)

• Greg Hester Trio Plays Live Jazz at Furthermore Wines (5:30-8:30pm)

• Live Jazz at Hotel Healdsburg: Randy Vincent Trio Pays Tribute to the Late Benny Gibson (Weekly, 6-9pm)

• Traditional British Pantomime Holiday Show at the Raven Theater: “Cinderella” (7:30pm)

• Classic Rock Band “New Earth Farmers” Play the Elephant in the Room (8pm)

Sunday, November 24

• Dry Creek Olive Company Hosts Community Milling Day at Trattore Farms & Winery: Deliver Your Olive Harvest & Receive Communal Olive Oil (9am-2pm)

• Clínica Legal de Imigracion y Feria de Recursos / Immigration Legal Clinic & Resource Fair at St. Peter’s Church in Cloverdale (1-5pm)

• Matinee Performance of Traditional British Pantomime Holiday Show at the Raven Theater in Healdsburg: “Cinderella” (2pm)

• Little Monsters Culinary Hosts Advanced Cooking Class for Kids at Merriam Winery: Authentic Mexican Cuisine (2:30-4pm)

• Irish Rocker Tim O’Neill Plays the Elephant in the Room (6-9pm)

Monday, November 25

• Thanksgiving Break for Healdsburg Schools (Nov 25-Dec 1)

• Meet Sonoma County Library Director Erika Thibault at the Mini Healdsburg Library Inside the Community Center (10-11am)
• “Baby Village” Mama Circle at the Mini Healdsburg Library (Weekly, 10:30-11:30am)
• Dollar Oysters at The Rooftop at Harmon Guest House (Weekly, 3-8pm)

Tuesday, November 26

• Homework Help for Kids in Grades K-12 at the Mini Healdsburg Library Inside the Community Center (Weekly, 3:30-5:30pm)

• Paint Party With Indigenous Artist Lucero Vargas at the Mini Healdsburg Library: “Raizes Workshop” for Teens & Adults (6-7:30pm)

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Wednesday, November 27

• Trivia Night at Coyote Sonoma (Weekly, 7-9pm)

Thursday, November 28 🦃

• Healdsburg City Offices & Library Closed for Thanksgiving (Nov 28-29)

• 12th Annual Healdsburg Turkey Trot: 5K Run/Walk Through Town, Starting & Ending at Healdsburg Running Company (8-10am)

The Trot of 2021. (Photo: Michael Lucid/Healdsburg Tribune)

• Thanksgiving Meal With a Mexican Twist at Arandas (12-7pm)

• Four-Course Thanksgiving Feast at Goodnights Steakhouse (12-7pm)

• Family-Friendly Thanksgiving Buffet at Spoonbar (1-7pm)

• SOLD OUT: Three-Course Thanksgiving Prix Fixe Menu at Dry Creek Kitchen (2-7pm)

Friday, November 29 🖤

• Night One of Twelve Festive Nights at Hotel Les Mars: “Foley Wine Hour” (4-6pm)

• Food Pop-Up at the Elephant in the Room: “Brunch Boys” (5pm)

• Late-Night Shopping in Downtown Healdsburg: Shops Stay Open Until 7pm (Weekly, Nov 29-Dec 20)

• Last Weekend of Traditional British Pantomime Holiday Show at the Raven Theater: “Cinderella” (Nov 29-30, 7:30pm)

• Funk-Rock Band Sweet ’N’ Juicy Plays the Elephant in the Room (8pm)

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Saturday, November 30 🌙

• Healdsburg Running Company Hosts Lake Sonoma Run With Breakfast Tacos (8am)

• Healdsburg Farmers Market in the West Plaza Parking Lot (Weekly, 8:30am-12pm)

• Holiday Makers Market at the “Falling for Dainty” Jewelry Store: Candles, Custom Hats, Baked Goods & More (10am-3pm)

• Night Two of Twelve Festive Nights at Hotel Les Mars: “Volo Chocolate Tasting” (4-6pm)

• Food Pop-Up at the Elephant in the Room: “Mamadios” (5pm)

• “The Joni Mitchell Situation” Plays Live Jazz at Furthermore Wines (5:30-8:30pm)

• Live Jazz at Hotel Healdsburg: Laura Klein Trio Plays “Sparkling Standards, Swinging Bebop, Deep Latin Grooves & Soulful Ballads” (Weekly, 6-9pm)

• Traveling Male Stripper Show “Girls Night Out” Comes to Coyote Sonoma (8pm)

• DJ Kevin West Plays House/Funk/Groove Music at the Elephant in the Room (9pm-1am)

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That‘s all for today; I’ll be back soon with more. Stay safe and dry and calm out there, if you can... we’ve still got the whole dang winter ahead of us! 🌈

— Simone Wilson

About me: I was born and raised in Healdsburg, CA, and have since worked as a local journalist for publications in San Diego, Los Angeles, New York City and the Middle East. I’m now a senior product manager and staff writer for the Weeklys newspaper group, including the Healdsburg Tribune and the North Bay Bohemian.

Have any feedback, questions, suggestions or corrections? Or a tip about something happening in town? Hit me up at swilson@weeklys.com.