1) Holy mother of storms. The “bomb cyclone” that rocked the North Bay — and the rest of California — over the weekend reportedly brought around 3 to 6 inches of rain to Sonoma and Napa counties, flooding dozens of low-lying roads and pushing local waterways to the brink. But the real headline was the raging, “hurricane-force” winds that reportedly got up to 80-plus mph in some places. One Sonoma County official tells the Press Democrat that this storm has been “probably the worst we have seen when it comes to trees and power lines down countywide.” While some parts of the state were most affected by the actual rainwater and flooding, the big issue here in Sonoma and Napa counties was all the trees toppling due to soggy soil and intense gusts — damaging cars and houses; blocking roadways, including the 101 at times; and falling onto power lines. This led to widespread power outages at tens of thousands of homes and businesses. As of Tuesday afternoon, the PG&E power-outage map showed many thousands STILL without power across both counties, some with estimated repair times of hours or even days ahead. The blackout situation today looked the worst in the Windsor, Guerneville, Bohemian Highway and Valley Ford areas. A bunch of local schools were also closed yesterday and today due to power outages and “other storm-related impacts.” (For what it’s worth, one alert issued by Napa County officials during the storm indicated that PG&E had passed its “major event threshold,” meaning crews started prioritizing “responding to new roadway/safety incidents for downed lines” over “restoration efforts for many customers who are still without power.”) Despite all that, I haven’t seen any news of injuries, deaths or other major disasters in our area; some other parts of California haven’t been so lucky. (Source: PG&E & Sonoma County Office of Education via Facebook & SF Gate & Press Democrat & Press Democrat; paywall)

Avelo Airlines, known as the Sonoma County Airport’s tight-budget option — can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em! — is planning to expand their wine-country empire this spring. The airline, which is based down in Burbank on the outskirts of L.A., just announced they’ll be opening a large “base” at our local airport on May 1. At the outset, it will house two planes — Boeing Next-Generation 737s — and serve as headquarters for up to 50 crewmembers they’ll be hiring, including “pilots, flight attendants and aviation maintenance technicians.” Which means a bunch of new airline-industry jobs for our area. The new facility will also allow Avelo to introduce four to six new nonstop, round-trip routes, a rep for the airport tell the Press Democrat. “They’re evaluating new destinations and they plan on announcing those in the next couple of weeks,” the rep says. “They just have not been finalized.” The budget airline currently runs four routes out of STS, for as cheap as $72 per flight: one to Redmond, OR, near Bend; one to Burbank, CA; one to Palm Springs, CA; and one to Vegas. (On that note, FYI, they just added some additional Vegas flights right before and after the Super Bowl.) For the new routes, these are the cities they’re choosing from, according to the PD: Eureka, CA; Redding, CA; Ogden, UT; Eugene, OR; Portland, OR; Salem, OR; Phoenix, AZ; Tucson, AZ; Colorado Springs, CO; Boise, ID; Bozeman, MT; Kalispell, MT; and Pasco, WA. (Source: PR Newswire & Press Democrat; paywall)

For the first time in nearly 13 years, someone spotted a tornado last week in Sonoma County, according to the Press Democrat — out near the coastal Valley Ford area, west of Petaluma. From the PD: “Matthew Beat thought he had seen his last tornado after he moved to the North Bay from Texas eight years ago. He was in for a surprise Thursday. ‘I was thinking about closing the overhead doors because the rain was starting,’ said Beat who was working at a power plant on Mecham Road in Petaluma. ‘I looked out and I was like wow, that is not normal.’ He watched at about 11:10 a.m. as what he believed was a funnel cloud started forming across the horizon, seemingly hovering over the unincorporated Sonoma County community of Two Rock, northwest of Petaluma. The Santa Rosa resident pulled out his phone and started recording video. He sent the video to The Press Democrat, which then confirmed with the National Weather Service that it in fact was a tornado.” You can watch the video here — pretty wild. Local weather officials tell the PD that “Thursday’s twister was the first spotted in Sonoma County since March 28, 2011, when an EF1 tornado destroyed a metal building and severely bent a metal gate in Santa Rosa.” (Source: Press Democrat; paywall)

In case you hadn’t heard, northern Sonoma County’s rep in the California State Assembly, Jim Wood, is giving up his seat this fall so he can go take care of his aging mom. This unexpected announcement late last year riled up quite the squad of seven NorCal go-getters with big political ambitions — so now we get to choose, in the March primaries and again in the November election, which of these overachievers we want to speak for us in Sacramento. The district they’re vying for, Assembly District 2, blankets the entire North Coast — stretching all the way from the Oregon border down to Santa Rosa. Wood’s pick to rule the region is Rusty Hicks, official chair of the Democratic Party here in California. (Side note: Could the name “Rusty Hicks” be any more backwoods North Coast chic? It’s like he was born for this.) Hicks has reportedly taken some heat recently for holding onto his Democratic Party job while running for office — raising “questions about the suitability of a candidate being in a position to hand out party support, and questions about one person’s ability to have two demanding party roles,” the Bohemian reports. Another major contender in the race is Chris Rogers, former Santa Rosa mayor and longtime staffer at Sen. Mike McGuire’s office; for that, he gets McGuire’s endorsement. Ariel Kelley, the recent mayor of Healdsburg, is also giving it a go — along with a handful of more rural candidates from further north. Should be a good and rowdy race. (Source: North Bay Bohemian & Healdsburg Tribune)

The three-decade-old Bodega Seafood, Art & Wine Festival, which used to be one of the most poppin’ summertime scenes on the Sonoma County coast — with crowds in the thousands — is officially dead in the water, according to the event’s organizers. “We’re ending the festival,” they wrote on Facebook last week. “We had interest from a couple of potential buyers, but they fell through. We know how much we’re letting folks down, but when the expenses went up almost $50,000 in the past two years, and the attendance/income decreased, we’ve been working for pennies. If we could afford to donate our time, we would, but we’re struggling to survive like all the businesses involved in the event. A 1000x thank you for your support, and we’ll keep you in the loop if anything changes in future years.” The Press Democrat reports: “The event once drew between 8,000 to 9,000 people annually to the Watts Ranch in the town of Bodega. The festival held last August, drawing 6,300 fans, turns out to have been the last one.” Janet Ciel, who also runs the farmers market in Healdsburg, tells the paper that  “every year attendance was going down” and that she and the festival’s other organizer, Michael Ecton, “haven’t been making enough to justify getting up in the morning, let alone working on it.” Guess that’s that. At least there’s still the Bodega Bay Fisherman’s Festival in spring… (Source: Bodega Seafood Art & Wine Festival via Facebook & Bodega Bay Fisherman’s Festival & Press Democrat; paywall)

The coho salmon population of the wine country seems to be having a bit of a renaissance this winter, thanks in part to massive, multimillion-dollar efforts in recent years by government entities and environmental orgs to make the Russian River — and the streams that run into it — into viable spawning runs for the coho. A couple years back, the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service reportedly set a goal of attracting 10,100 adult coho back to the Russian to spawn — more than 60 times the final count of 165 coho last winter. But if the latest counts trickling in from local streams and hatcheries are any indication, we’ll get a little closer to goal this winter. At Lake Sonoma, officials have tallied 15 coho who made it back to the hatchery as of Jan. 24; at the same time last year, only one had made it back, out of three total for the whole season. And down at Olema Creek in Marin County — which runs into Lagunitas Creek and Tomales Bay, not the Russian, for what it’s worth — park rangers have been shocked by the amount of coho they’re seeing. “Some years, biologists are alarmed by the small numbers of coho salmon returning to spawn in Olema Creek,” Point Reyes National Seashore officials wrote on Facebook a few weeks ago. “This is NOT one of those years! Since late November, biologists have found over 200 adult coho and over 50 coho redds (nests). Fishery Biologist Mike Reichmuth won’t soon forget one day in late December: ‘We had an epic day on Olema, with a single day count of over 150 adult coho salmon. This is the highest single day count that we have [ever] recorded.‘ In other words, this season featured the best day for spawning coho in over two decades. And Reichmuth notes that it is on track to be the best spawning season overall in more than 15 years.” So there may be hope yet for these guys. (Source: Bay Nature Magazine & Smithsonian Magazine & Sierra Magazine & Sonoma County Gazette & U.S. Army Corps via Facebook & CA.gov & KRCB & Point Reyes National Seashore via Facebook)