The last remnants of the Bay Area’s most powerful storm since the spring dropped more showers on the region Tuesday — including isolated downpours — after taking a break overnight from dumping rain in a way hardly ever seen in October.
It also continued to drop snow on the Sierra Nevada.
The weather blitz reached the region Monday and left San Jose with 1½ inches of rain, its second-heaviest rainfall day ever recorded in October. Only the 2 1/3 inches that fell there exactly six years earlier topped Monday’s mark.
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Other areas also were slammed. More than two inches of rain fell in the Santa Cruz Mountains, about 1¾ inches came down in Oakland; 1½ inches fell Walnut Creek and about 1¼ inches were tallied in Livermore before 6 a.m. Tuesday, according to the weather service. About two-thirds of an inch fell in San Francisco.
To put that in perspective, consider that the Bay Area generally doesn’t get that much rain in all of October. The average monthly rainfall total for October in San Francisco is .94 inches. It’s 0.88 in Oakland and 0.8 inches in San Jose.
It didn’t stop there. The weather service said isolated showers were expected to fall into Tuesday evening in isolated pockets. Concord recorded one-tenth of an inch early between 7 a.m. and 1 p.m. and a half-inch fell in area near the Oakland Hills, according to the weather service.
In the Sierra Nevada, snow continued to drop Tuesday and up to 3 feet of snow was expected in certain areas, according to the weather service. The white stuff was most likely starting at an elevation of about 5,500 feet.
The weather service issued a winter storm watch for Tahoe and Mono counties that remained in effect all day Tuesday and is set to expire at 11 a.m. Wednesday. Safety officials discouraged travel over Donner Summit.
It all came courtesy of a cold front that brought low pressure from the Gulf of Alaska, a system that is much more in keeping with the type of storm that usually develops in the winter.
“It was about what we expected,” NWS meteorologist Roger Gass said.
The storm also brought the threat of thunder and lightning, but Gass said all of the lightning strikes recorded by the weather service remained over the ocean and did not occur over land. The weather service said areas of Alameda and Santa Cruz counties remained under a marginal threat for thunder and lightning Tuesday, but that the greatest chance for the two elements are in Monterey and San Benito counties.
The end to the rainy Bay Area weather won’t take that long. Gass said that despite the isolated heavy rain cells, most of the rain fell more lightly than Monday. By Tuesday morning, flood advisories had expired in Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties.
Come Wednesday morning, all of the rain from the system is supposed to be finished. Gass said the Bay Area will spend the rest of the week drying out from the storm, with a partially cloudy sky to be replaced by a clear one as the week progresses. By Friday, the temperatures in the hottest spots are likely to return to the 70s.
