A back-and-forth Bay Area weather pendulum that has swung between some wet October days and some gorgeously sunny and warm ones began to swing back toward the wet stuff Wednesday, courtesy of a system moving up the Central Coast from the south.
Come the weekend, it will be a system descending from the north that may cause the rain to fall.
Either way, the 80-plus-degree coat of sunshine that blanketed the region the past few days was set to be a memory, according to the National Weather Service.
“We do have rain in the forecast,” NWS meteorologist Matt Mehle said. “I think what we want people to know is that is does not look like it will be a washout for the entire weekend.”
The scant rain that did fall Wednesday happened mostly in the Central Coast and came from a system that formed off Southern California and moved up the coast. It avoided the East Bay, the South Bay and the Peninsula, where official tallies showed no measurable rain.
The chance for rain in those areas begin Friday night and into Saturday, though the South Bay again remains unlikely to get enough to measure. A system from the north is expected to arrive by Friday night and stretch into Saturday, according to Mehle. It is not expected to be as heavy as the last storm to go through the region, nor is it expected to be accompanied by lightning, hail or heavy winds.
“Just rain,” Mehle said. “It’s coming from a weak atmospheric river, and it’s starting to shift a bit more north than we originally anticipated, toward areas like Yreka and far Northern California. But the Bay Area should feel it. Initially, we were looking at an inch or more for most of the region.
“Now, we see it more as being a quarter- to a half-inch. And we don’t expect to see anything fall south of the Golden Gate Bridge.”
A second wave of rain also could bring some rain Sunday.
“We’re waiting to see how it develops,” Mehle said. “But there could be an additional push.”
As for Wednesday’s rain, it started to fade by noon. The weather service said it received reports of pea-sized hail in areas of Monterey County overnight. The conditions also brought dozens of lightning strikes in areas of the Central Coast overnight — if not loads of rain, Mehle said.
“Technically, it’s dry lightning,” Mehle said. “The rain gauges down there are showing less than an inch.”
