People watch the waves from the Pacifica Municipal Pier in Pacifica, Calif., on Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024. A High Surf Advisory is in effect through 4:00 a.m. Thursday. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
Waves along the Bay Area coast will swell higher than normal, and king tides will continue to push coastal waters higher onto the shore than normal. Occasional light rain will fall sporadically.
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Yet for the most part, an atmospheric river-fueled storm that leveled the Bay Area this week was over by Thursday morning, the National Weather Service said. And the region is likely to have at least a week to dry out before the next one.
“There is a chance for some very light showers (Thursday),” NWS meteorologist Brayden Murdock said. “There is some moisture left over from the system, and that will make its way out of the area. But while it does, there could be the occasional rain.”
What won’t be there are the gusty winds that blew in excess of 55 mph in some of the higher elevations — Gunsight Fire Road at 1,150-foot elevation mark in Marin County recorded 82 mph winds, the weather service said — and up to 45 mph in the central part of the region over the past two days. The weather service lifted a wind warning for the region Wednesday afternoon.
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The most rain fell in the North Bay and in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The weather service recorded official overall rain totals of 3.22 inches in Santa Rosa; 3.04 inches in Occidental, north of Santa Rosa; 2 inches at Ben Lomond and 1.52 inches on Mount Tamalpais.
Closer to the center of the region, the rain brought .27 inches of rain to Mount Diablo and .07 inches at Buchanan Field Airport in Concord. The weather service recorded .12 inches at Oakland International Airport, .08 inches at San Francisco International Airport and .04 inches of rain at Mineta San Jose International Airport.
Now, the focus turns to the king tides and hazards at the beaches, Murdock said. The weather service issued a warning for a hazardous beaches and said waves were expected to reach average swells of 15 feet Thursday. Some spots could exceed 20 feet, according to the weather service. Rip currents also are expected to be powerful.
Those waves come along with the king tides that will surge along the coast until Friday. The weather service issued a warning for hazardous beach conditions.
“It’s not a good time to be going to the beach,” Murdock said.
The region will next dry out into next week, with clouds increasingly giving way to more and more patches of blue sky as the weekend approaches. Murdock said the next best chance of rain will be late next week.
“We have good confidence that the rain will be widespread,” he said. “How much of it we’re still not sure. We’ve got a low pressure system moving in the south and another one coming from the north.”
Murdock said forecasters are waiting to see how those systems proceed to get a better idea of what may be awaiting with the next storm.
Originally published at Rick Hurd