Windy and Wet Weather Ahead

Decem-brr morning temperatures in the 30s and 40s will eventually climb into the low to mid 50s during the day as clouds continue spilling in from the west. Expect some light rain showers near the coast late in the day with rain moving back into the Bay Area for Friday. Winds will begin increasing as well for Friday with locally strong gusts for the coast/hilltops to kick off the weekend. Rain totals between Friday and Sunday remain very impressive for the coastal mountains where we could be in the 2″-5″ range by the end of the weekend. This should mean a few feet of snow will fall in the Sierra for elevations above 6,000 ft, travel will be extremely tough with strong winds and heavy snow at times in the high country. As the ground gets more saturated around the Bay Area with more rain falling, we’ll likely see some localized urban/small stream flood advisories popping up at times as well. One recent trend in the computer model runs has been to push more of the heaviest rain south of Big Sur into the Central Coast – perhaps keeping the Bay Area sitting on the upper fringe of the heaviest rain (mainly Santa Cruz southward). We’ll see if this pattern holds up as we move into the weekend. – Rob Mayeda