Winter Storm Goliath Hits Sacramento Mountains and Devastates Sunspot & APO - December 2015

Winter Storm Goliath hit the Sacramento Mountains starting overnight on December 26-27, 2015, devastating Sunspot and causing severe damage at Apache Point Observatory. The damage at Sunspot was so severe it took over two weeks to get electric power and water service fully up and running. APO was affected by the status of Sunspot because NSO supplies water to APO. Loss of water and elecricity as well as the dozens of downed trees and power lines all over APO and Sunspot caused a temporary but extended shutdown of operations. There were reports of up to 15-36 inches of snow in various parts of the Sacramento Mountains and APO staff reported winds up to 81 mph. To further complicate matters, shortly after storm Goliath hit there was a series of four more storms during the following week that dropped over a foot of snow and seriously hampered recovery efforts at APO and Sunspot.

According to a post-storm report by Doug Gilliam from NSO, Sunspot lost their weather mast at a gust of 94 and the higher gusts were estimated to be near 110 mph. 

#ElNino

Damage at APO:

	Video of APO damage on YouTube: Stormy Day at APO, by Arl Cope https://youtu.be/rXL6DliPUtc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXL6DliPUtc&feature=youtu.be

Damage at Sunspot/NSO:

	Videos of damage at Sunspot/NSO: https://youtu.be/qmTMGfsLE-I https://youtu.be/o9_avOL-zQA https://youtu.be/fdynMFZadRw https://youtu.be/nT4kcZ9DJ5Y