A winter storm carrying wind gusts up to 60 mph and heavy rain pounded the Sacramento region Wednesday, cutting power to more than 50,000 people, knocking down dozens of trees and causing minor street flooding.

Most of the outages were scattered in small pockets with small numbers of customers per outage. The highest number of outages was 370 at the storm's peak, which occurred between about 9 and 10 a.m., said Chris Capra, spokesperson for Sacramento Municipal Utility District.

The storm didn't cause nearly the amount of power outages as the biggest storm in October, when thousands of outages occurred, Capra said. The lack of leaves on trees at this time of year helped; there wasn't a substantial number of leaves to soak up rain into branches or to contribute to branches being blown about by the wind, he said.

"We haven't seen the kind of damage we saw in the October storm," Capra said.

The city of Sacramento's Urban Forestry department got 40 calls of trees down, eight for trees needing to be removed and 31 calls of branches down or damaged, according to city Department of Transportation spokesperson Linda Tucker.

Almost 20 traffic signals were affected, many turned or without power, and some street lights were knocked down by falling trees or damaged by wind. City street crews closed Raley Boulevard near Santa Ana Avenue due to flooding of Magpie Creek.

Many people experienced only momentary losses of power. SMUD troubleshooters and other crews were out working to restore power throughout the day, but not during the height of the storm.

"When it's real windy and wet, we can't put crews out there to work," Capra said. "First of all for their safety. And in a matter of time, the wind could blow real hard again and it becomes fruitless.

By 7:30 p.m., only 2,700 customers were without power.

"We're looking at restoration efforts continuing throughout the night," Capra said.

Sacramento residents can call 311 to report downed trees or branches or other unsafe conditions to the city.

Photos by Eric Whalen and Suzanne Hurt.