A bicyclist stops to admire the San Francisco skyline as dark storm clouds approach in the horizon on Skyline Boulevard in Oakland, Calif., on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)
Rain is heading toward the Bay Area this week.
No, really, honest! This time, there’s almost no question.
Almost.
At least, that was the message sent forth Monday by those who gauge such things for the National Weather Service. Never mind that forecasting the rain has not been all that easy recently.
“Right now,” NWS meteorologist Crystal Oudit said Monday afternoon, “we are looking at this event with high confidence.”
Yet even within this pretty-much-sure-thing, the region itself is not likely to get soaked, weather forecasters said. And there could be places that see no rain at all.
Oudit said a wet system was making its way toward the region from the Gulf of Alaska, and that as is normally the case in such instances, the heaviest rain is expected to be in the North Bay. Up to a half-inch is forecast for Santa Rosa and Napa.
The rain is expected to start on Tuesday night, with the heaviest cells passing through the region on Wednesday.
The forecast for Santa Clara, Alameda and Contra Costa counties is not nearly that heavy. In those places, a quarter-inch of rain is forecast to be the high-end amount; Oudit said the way the pattern looked Monday that it’s “probably more like one-tenth of an inch.”
Of course, what’s been expected recently has not turned out to be what’s happened. Forecasters in the middle of last week said they anticipated some rain to fall on the region over the weekend. It did not, at least not in any measurable quantities.
In mid-November, forecasters predicted at least 2 inches of rain for much of the Greater Bay Area — including the North Bay, San Francisco, the Santa Cruz Mountains and Big Sur — and said they were 70% to 80% certain on that prediction.
That system provided only a glancing jab of storms. The only significant rainfall it left was one-third of an inch in areas of the North Bay.
Still, Oudit emphasized more than once that forecasters have reason to be confident at least some rain will fall this time. The only question is where, when and how heavy and long-lasting it will be when it does.
“Because it’s going to be so spotty, it will depend on the day and the place,” Oudit said. “The main event will be only one day, at least the part of it that will drop any measurable amounts.”
Bay Area residents began the work week Monday with dense fog in many areas, including on the Bay Area bridges. Weather and safety officials urged motorists to turn on their low-beam headlights to drive slowly. They also urged motorists to keep their distance from other vehicles and to delay considering travel when dense fog is present.
Some fog is expected to linger leading up to the rain, which forecasters said should be out of the area by Friday. Oudit said it will be replaced by very cold temperatures, which may bring freeze and frost warnings to areas in the region as overnight lows drop into the low 30s or high 20s.
Originally published at Rick Hurd