Wildflowers atop Mount Davidson in San Francisco on March 20, 2019. After light rain moves through Northern California on Monday, another storm is forecast to bring a bit more rain — and Sierra snow — before dry, warmer weather. (TheRealWBTC/Twitter)
After last week’s conveyor belt of storms, the Bay Area will see a few chances for showers and some chilly nights this week before making way for a sunny first weekend of spring.
Light rain that began Sunday night will pass through the South Bay by midmorning Monday, leaving behind clear, if cold, skies and capping off a wintry weather week in Northern California.
A string of dreary days last week didn’t produce record rainfall in the Bay Area, but the cold temperatures and scattered showers that blew through the region dropped major snow on the Sierra Nevada.
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Last Tuesday marked the snowiest day in two years in the area north of Lake Tahoe — more than 10 inches of powder were recorded at UC Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Lab in Soda Springs. In the last seven days, the area has gotten more than 4 feet of snow, and it’s expecting more Monday, according to Mark Deutschendorf at the weather service’s Reno office.
“Generally between 2 and 9 inches was the range of snow that fell overnight into early morning,” Deutschendorf said. “We’ll probably see another, maybe 6 to 10 inches for the rest of today.”
Snow-blanketed South Lake Tahoe in California on Nov. 8, 2022. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
He said that a short storm Wednesday into Thursday morning could drop 3 to 6 more inches of snow before the mountains enter a quieter weather period.
This week’s forecast back in the Bay Area looks to be a mixed bag as weeks of gloomy weather that first hit in February start to subside. Monday brings a slight chance of thunderstorms as showers on the backside of Sunday’s storm move toward the Central Coast.
Tuesday is expected to be dry but cold, with overnight temperatures dipping into the 30s and 40s before rain makes a final return on Wednesday.
That storm doesn’t look to be particularly impactful, with local forecasts predicting a few hundredths to a tenth of an inch of new rainfall, according to the weather service. The Sonoma County coast could see the most significant rains, totaling about half an inch.
After midweek, conditions should dry out, and NWS Bay Area meteorologist Nicole Sarment said the weekend looks “sunny and warm.”
“The Climate Prediction Center is highlighting us to be above average for temperatures and near normal for precipitation for the next two weeks,” Sarment said.
Temperatures should get up to the high 60s in San Francisco and the low 70s in the North Bay on Saturday and Sunday, so for the bravest among us, it could be a good time for a polar plunge.
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