Here’s When Rain and Snow Will Hit the Bay Area and Tahoe This Week

This week’s storm pummeling the Bay Area has already unleashed pouring rain, more than 500 lightning strikes, snowy peaks and reports of hail. And more is on the way — rain will fall all week on the coastal region, with frigid temperatures in the North and South Bay Area, and plenty of snow in the Sierra Nevada by the end of the week.

Over the past two days, a cold front sweeping across the region from the Gulf of Alaska has brought San Francisco and Oakland nearly 2 inches of rain. North Bay cities saw higher amounts — more than 3 inches — and peaks like Mount Tamalpais received more than 4 inches of rain. And just this morning, Bay Area peaks, like Mount Hamilton in Santa Clara County, collected several inches of snow.

Forecasters said the consistent downpour will last through Wednesday across the greater Bay Area, but off-and-on showers are likely through Saturday. The National Weather Service has also issued an extreme cold warning through Wednesday morning for the North Bay mountains and valleys, as well as the southern Salinas Area.

By the week’s end, each part of the Bay Area could see nearly 2 inches of rain or more, said Dalton Behringer, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Bay Area office.

“We still have a few more rounds of rain through the end of the week,” Behringer said. “Most people may actually see some sun Thursday, Friday and Saturday.”

But after the relatively calm weekend, Behringer said to expect a “deja vu” moment on Sunday into next week when another round of storms moves south into the region. Flooding has been minimal so far, he said, but next week could be a different story.

“Some of the areas that got a lot of rain this week may start to see some of those compounding flooding effects,” Behringer said.

Behringer doesn’t expect any large-scale river flooding because rivers across the region are in “pretty good shape to accept a lot more runoff.” He said that if any does occur, it will likely be localized in urban areas and along small streams.

Across the Sierra Nevada, forecasters said ski resorts are already reporting a foot to a couple of feet of snow, with 12 inches at Lake Tahoe.

“This really is just the beginning,” Edan Lindaman, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Reno, told KQED. “This is just a really strong winter storm. And because it’s been so quiet, it may have caught some people off guard.”

Forecasters said snow levels could drop to 1,000 feet at times, and more than 4 feet could fall at 3,500 feet or above. Up to 8 feet of snow could fall on the highest peaks.

Dakari Anderson, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Sacramento office, discouraged mountain travel over the next few days.

“We are looking at dangerous to near impossible mountain traveling conditions with chain controls and road closures,” Anderson said. “There will also be low visibility and near whiteout conditions from a combination of snow and heavy wind.”

But the anticipated snow will be a positive boost for the state’s snowpack — needed for replenishing the state’s water levels — already nearing the yearly average of where it should be by winter’s end.

What this week’s storm will do is push the state’s frozen reservoir in the right direction of approaching an average snowpack year, said Andrew Schwartz, director of the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab.

“This isn’t going to be a one-and-done situation where we get this storm, and it brings us up to average and everything’s hunky dory for the rest of the season,” Schwartz said. “We’ll need multiple other storms to try to get back up to that average or above average mark, but this is definitely a step in the correct direction.”

Schwartz described the looming systems as smaller snow producers.

“But that’s not necessarily the end of the world either,” Schwartz said. “If we get multiple storms that have little bits of snow, that’s just as good as having one or two big storms.”