upper waypoint

More Rain Passes Through Bay Area, With a Stronger Storm Coming by Weekend

Save ArticleSave Article
Failed to save article

Please try again

A vehicle drives through a flooded parking lot in Marin City on Nov. 22, 2024, during a storm bringing heavy rain and strong winds to the Bay Area. After Northern California was slammed by an intense storm last weekend, Monday’s light rain will be followed by dry, even sunny, weather until a stronger rain system on the horizon. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

Though it might not look like it based on the gray rain clouds gathering outside your window Monday morning, this week’s weather is expected to be a brief reprieve from the Bay Area’s rainy fall.

After a fairly weak storm passes through on Monday, the Bay Area will have dry, and even some sunny, weather through the end of the work week. This weekend, a stronger rain system is on the horizon, threatening to complicate last-minute holiday shopping and travel.

Light rain began in the North Bay early Monday and is traveling south to San Francisco and the South Bay. Meteorologists say it won’t bring rainfall totals anywhere near the records broken last month.

Sponsored

Higher-elevation areas of the North Bay could get up to three-quarters of an inch, while just up to a quarter of an inch is expected elsewhere.

Showers should start to taper off in the evening, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Crystal Oudit. Enjoy the week of dry, slightly warmer weather, she recommended, since the Bay Area could be getting a gray, wet Christmas this year.

“It does look like rain’s going to return, possibly Saturday into the weekend, and then we do see a signal for a chance for wet weather for the week of Christmas,” she told KQED.

It’s too soon to make out many specifics about this weekend’s storm, Oudit said.

So far, the incoming system looks stronger than Monday’s scattered showers, but it doesn’t look set up to rival last weekend’s heavy rain and strong winds — including a tornado in Santa Cruz County and San Francisco’s first citywide tornado warning — or November’s double atmospheric rivers.

The National Weather Service is forecasting “unsettled and wet weather,” and although Oudit said it’s not yet being categorized as an atmospheric river, this is the season for those particularly wet events.

“For the North Bay, what we have in our forecast from Saturday to Monday [is] anywhere between 2 to 3 1/2 inches,” she said. “At higher terrain, you can see up to 4 inches.”

There could be some gusty winds, but no concerning speeds are expected so far.

lower waypoint
next waypoint