Rob Mayeda's Forecast: Rain & Wind Return

A fast moving storm will bring periods of locally gusty winds and briefly heavy rain at times, mainly overnight into early Saturday. We should see rain change to scattered showers with sun at time for Saturday and at least an ongoing chance of seeing a few brief showers Sunday. Unlike the super soaking we saw earlier this week from a long duration atmospheric river over the North Bay, this system should be a fairly quick moving so rain totals should be in the 0.33” to 1.00” range for most with locally higher totals possible along the hills. A Winter Storm Warning is in place for the Sierra to Sunday with 1-2 ft of snow expected, plan on delays or brief road closures heading to the high country this weekend. Next Tuesday and Wednesday does bear watching a similar strength, longer duration atmospheric river pattern sets up – at this point appears to be aiming in more for areas south of Monterey into Southern California but stay tuned…any slight shift to the North could bring enhanced flooding potential esp. for the Santa Cruz mountains next week. Stay tuned.