California

Bay Area Braces for Wet and Windy Weekend

The National Weather Service says California's withering winter dry spell will end this weekend as a series of storms move through the state.

Get ready for a wet and windy weekend.

The National Weather Service says California's withering winter dry spell will end this weekend as a series of storms move through the state.

Scattered light showers fell around Northern California early Friday and were expected to continue on and off overnight before becoming steady and heavy through Saturday evening as a strong cold front crosses the region, the NWS San Francisco office said. More scattered rain is expected on Sunday.

Wind advisories were issued for all nine Bay Area counties through Saturday at 11 p.m.

In the Peninsula, Pacifica has declared a state of emergency because of El Nino storms. City crews and residents  in Pacifica spent Friday bracing for heavy surf and possibly more coastal erosion.

In the East Bay, firefighters will be on alert this weekend for mudslides.

Fremont Fire Department Capt. Rick Bota said the problem with Bay Area storms is they can really cause a lot of damage when there is strong wind and heavy rain.

PG&E crews have also been preparing for this weekend's storm by trimming trees from powerlines.

Meanwhile, flash flood watches were to go into effect in the state's far northwestern and central areas as well as the Sierra Nevada, where snow totals could range from 2 feet to 4 feet at elevations above 8,000 feet. Sierra snow levels will lower to near 4,000 feet by Sunday, forecasters said.

The Sierra snowpack, which normally stores about 30 percent of California's water supply, was only 83 percent of the March 1 average when it was measured earlier this week. That's much better than a year earlier, but after years of drought nearly all the state's major reservoirs hold far less water than average by this time of year, the Department of Water Resources said.

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