#central-valley

#central-valley

After recent rains drenched the Central Valley, dense fog is now rolling in through the holiday weekend. Murky conditions blanketed the region Friday morning, earning a dense-fog advisory through 10 a.m. due to visibility of less than a quarter of a mile. The most affected areas included Bakersfield, Delano and the southern portion of Interstate 5, Stephen McCoy, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, told SFGATE.

By 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, the weather service had recorded about 4,800 lightning strikes from Sacramento to San Luis Obispo, including 1,300 that touched the ground. The weather service said an unknown amount of fires started overnight in southeast Monterey County and in southwestern Fresno County early Tuesday. It was not known immediately how big any of those fires were, but Cal Fire had not reported any new ones on its list of California's major ones.

Since Covered California went into effect more than ten years ago, millions of state residents have relied on the program to obtain healthcare, year after year.