April Showers Drop Rain, Snow and Possible Thunderstorms on the Bay Area

The Bay Area’s weekend sun has disappeared as quickly as it arrived, leaving a cloud of cooler weather — and potential for spring showers — behind.

Daily highs are set to drop sharply for the rest of the week after hitting the 70s and low 80s on Sunday and Monday. Temperatures will hover around the seasonal averages in San José, San Francisco, Oakland and the North Bay, in the mid-60s inland and dipping as low as the 50s along the coast.

“We’re in the midst of a cool down,” Brayden Murdock, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Bay Area office, said. “We’ll see some stronger coastal cloud cover as well as some chances for fog and drizzle in the mornings.”

Murdock said areas further inland could retain some of the weekend’s heat through most of Tuesday before moisture-rich winds blowing onshore reach them. By Wednesday, though, the whole region is expected to feel the weather system shift, which could even bring chances for light rain and thunderstorms.

Two wind patterns look set to cross midweek, according to Murdock, to create the unstable atmosphere that allows for springtime showers. The greatest possibility will be Wednesday afternoon into evening, when there’s about a 20% chance of rain around Monterey Bay.

After the rain passes through, it will head up to Sacramento Valley and the Sierra Nevadas, creating one of the last possibilities for a few inches of snow this season — a welcome gift for spring skiers.

Early in the week, the Tahoe area will see snowmelt thanks to the statewide warming trend, but colder weather coming down from the Pacific Northwest mixed with showers from the Bay Area could lower the snow level to 6,500 feet, giving the region a chance to make up a few extra inches of snowpack.

Most ski resorts have closing dates on the calendar as early as next weekend, but the flurries will carry Palisades resort on the North Shore through to Memorial Day.

Back in the Bay Area, the coming weekend is expected to warm up, though forecasts aren’t as high as they were this past Sunday and Monday.

Murdock said that fluctuating temperatures are to be expected for the next few weeks — April showers have a reputation for a reason.

“That’s how things usually set up this time of year,” he said. “It’s looking very spring-like for the Bay Area.”