Bay Area Weather Turns the Corner With More Late Spring Rain

Rain has returned to the Bay Area after a stretch of record warm spring weather.

Showers hit the North Bay on Monday morning, ushering in a storm front that will move through Northern California and the Central Coast throughout the early part of this week with up to 3 inches of rainfall and snow in the mountains — and more could follow heading into early May, according to the National Weather Service.

“We are turning the corner with wetter weather,” said NWS meteorologist Matt Maley.

Higher elevation areas such as the Santa Lucia, Santa Cruz and North Bay mountains could see 2 to 3 inches of rain this week. In San Francisco, Oakland and other more central parts of the Bay Area, the storm system is expected to drop half an inch to an inch and a half of rain, according to Maley.

Following Monday’s most significant rainfall, he said there could be additional showers and a chance of thunderstorms through Wednesday.

The storm system is unseasonably late for the Bay Area, where the end of April into May usually marks a transition to springtime weather. But, Maley said, it’s sorely needed given the lack of rain and snowfall in recent months.

In mid-March, temperatures across the state soared up to 30 degrees above average, breaking into the 90s in the South Bay and 80s in San Francisco. While the extended heat wave was fun for some beachgoers, it raised alarms among state officials, who said the melting snowpack could lead to drought and early wildfire conditions.

“Any late spring rainfall is definitely a welcome sight,” Maley told KQED. “This will be mainly beneficial rain, that’s going to delay any type of fire weather concerns as we head into the upcoming summer.”

The storm is also expected to hit the Sierra Nevada, adding up to three feet to the dwindling snowpack at elevations about 7,000 feet. Early spring weather there has also whittled away snow in recent months, forcing many ski resorts to shut down for the season early or close runs where slushy ice has all but disappeared.

At the beginning of the month, the Sierra’s snowpack was just 18% of its April 1 average. The final winter survey is supposed to be the California Department of Water Resources’ best indicator of how much water will be available for farms and cities through the warmer seasons — and generally marks the height of the snowpack.

This year, green grass peeked through patchy snow as the officials took measurements.

While California’s reservoirs are in relatively good shape, officials warned that if record-breaking years like this one compound, it could be a different story.

“This is how droughts start,” Aaron Baker, the chief operating officer for the Santa Clara Valley Water District in the South Bay, told KQED at the time.

Luckily, the Bay Area could see another unusual weather pattern this spring, with April showers bleeding into May. The 14-day forecast is showing elevated precipitation chances, according to Maley.

“Extended guidance from the Climate Prediction Center leans towards temperatures and rain totals above seasonal averages for the last days of April into the first days of May,” the weather service said Monday.