FRESNO, Calif. — Fall looked a lot like winter across Northern California on Monday as the first major storm of the season brought out snow plows on Interstate 80, prompted travel advisories at higher elevations and showered the rest of the parched region with much-needed rain.

Forecasters were calling for up to 2 feet of snow at the highest elevations in the northern Sierra Nevada, a good sign for a state dependent on winter snow accumulation for its water supply.

“It looks like Mother Nature threw us our first snowball,” said Rochelle Jenkins of Caltrans, which was enforcing chain controls above 4,300 feet on I-80, the state’s main highway through the Sierra Nevada.

Baseball fans are hoping for clear skies at 5:07 p.m. as the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals play the deciding seventh game of the National League Championship Series at AT&T Park.

The forecast is for a 30 to 40 percent chance of scattered showers across the region at game time.

Law enforcement authorities were working to clear five jackknifed big rigs that forced the closing of Highway 20 east of Nevada City, where at least 6 inches of snow had accumulated by midmorning.