4 Days Of Rain: Timing, Intensity Of Bay Area Storms

BAY AREA, CA —The storm door is opening again, with a series of rainmakers coming through the region over the next week, according to forecasters with the National Weather Service in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Light rain showers are expected to enter the region Wednesday into Thursday. The higher elevations of the North Bay will be lucky to receive half an inch of rain, with around a quarter of an inch expected across the North Bay valleys, around a tenth to a quarter of an inch throughout the Bay Area and Santa Cruz County, and a few sprinkles to a tenth of an inch on the Central Coast.

More significant rainfall is expected Friday and Saturday, with the current forecast calling for the bulk of the rain to start coming into the region Friday evening and Saturday, with lingering showers into Sunday.

There's still some time for rainfall totals to fluctuate, the National Weather Service said. For the moment, the forecast calls for 3-5 inches of rain in the North Bay coastal ranges, 1-2.5 inches in the North Bay valleys, 0.5-1 inches in the Bay Area valleys and the Monterey Bay region, 1-2 inches in the Santa Cruz and Santa Lucia mountains, and a few sprinkles to 0.25 inches in the southern Salinas Valley, the southeast corner of Monterey County, and the southern half of San Benito County.

The weather service was also starting to see indications of another storm system entering the region early next work week. Temperatures above seasonal averages were looking to be likely during the third week of December —a 60-70 percent probability —and there was still an ever-so-slight lean towards precipitation totals above seasonal averages.