Weather
Bay Area Downpour: Many Cities Get An Inch Of Rain
Rain drenched Northern California over the weekend, prompting roadway closures and downing trees. Will it be enough to quell the drought?
BAY AREA, CA — Rain pummeled the Bay Area over the weekend, bringing chilly temperatures and flooding in some areas. Many cities received more than one inch of rain, while the wettest areas saw nearly five inches of rain.
Stormy weather brought the region's first day of all-day downpour in weeks. Minor flooding, toppled trees and downed power lines affected some communities, weather officials said.
Meanwhile, hazardous travel conditions were reported near Big Sur, where Highway 1 was shut down from Ragged Point to Big Sur in Monterey County due to a rockslide, CalTrans reported.
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"That’s obviously a great thing, to get some precipitation here, since we needed it," Rick Canepa, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, told the Mercury News.
Rain is much needed in Bay Area, as California sinks further into drought. Big Sur and many sites within the Santa Cruz mountains received a whopping three and five inches of rain, according to the National Weather Service.
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The storm did bring considerable snow and rain, but people shouldn't get too optimistic, warned Michael Anderson, the state climatologist. Last year two major storms in October and December were followed by months of bone-dry weather.
"Don’t get too carried away by any one storm," Anderson told reporters.
California is about to conclude its driest three-year stretch on record and as water managers brace for a fourth year with below-average precipitation — and this winter is forecast to be another dry La Nina season.
“We’re all just sort of holding our breath to see what mother nature does,” said Michael McNutt, spokesman for Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, which serves some wealthy suburbs of Los Angeles and relies almost exclusively on state supplies.
Here are the rain totals for the Bay Area from Friday to Monday morning, according to the National Weather Service.
Alameda County
Hayward: 1.74
Oakland: 1.54
Castro Valley: 1.20
Fremont: 1.09
Piedmont: 1.06
Livermore: 0.96
Dublin: 0.94
Alameda: 0.92
Union City: 0.67
Contra Costa County
Walnut Creek: 1.41
Concord: 1.29
Lafayette: 1.23
Danville: 1.22
Pittsburg: 0.40
Marin County
San Rafel: 0.61
Fairfax: 0.55
Novato: 0.35
Point Reyes Station: 0.52
Monterey County
Anderson Peak: 10.47
NW Hearst Castle: 9.68
Carmel: 1.35
Big Sur Raws: 4.63
Napa County
Saint Helena: 1.78
Calistoga: 1.40
Napa County Airport: 0.58
San Francisco County
San Francisco: 0.65
San Mateo County
Redwood City: 1.50
Pacifica: 1.20
Burlingame 0.8 WSW: 0.96
Woodside: 0.89
Half Moon Bay: 0.88
San Francisco Airport: 0.79
San Mateo: 0.67
Belmont: 0.49
Santa Clara County
San Jose: 3.87
Los Gatos: 2.61
Scotts Valley: 1.82
Saratoga: 1.82
Cupertino: 1.51
Gilroy: 1.28
Santa Cruz County
Soquel: 3.14
Santa Cruz: 2.21
Scotts Valley: 2.07
Aptos: 1.96
Capitola: 1.64
Sonoma County
Healdsburg: 1.37
Windsor: 1.30
Santa Rosa: 1.15
Sebastopol: 1.17
Petaluma: 0.22
Maritime Stations
Pebble Beach 2.06
Fort Ord 1.10
2 N San Mateo 0.69
Belmont 0.57
SF Bay Near Crissy Field 0.45 in
1.4 SW Montara 0.12
Dry and unseasonably warm conditions are likely to push into the holiday season and beyond in California, according to the latest update from the national Climate Prediction Center.
Very little rain is expected to fall across the state as lingering La Niña conditions are forecast to keep the region dry from December through February, according to an update published Nov. 17 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service.
“It should be no surprise that the winter outlook is consistent with typical La Niña impacts, which include a general warmer and drier south, and cooler and wetter north," Jon Gottschalck, chief of the climate center’s operational prediction branch, told the Los Angeles Times.
December, January and February are typically the state's wettest months, producing half of its annual rainfall while Sierra snowpack helps to store water supplies year round. But a U.S. winter outlook published by the agency in late October spells trouble for the drought-stricken state.
"Another dry winter is certainly not going to be good news for California," Mike Halpert, deputy director of the Climate Prediction Center, told the Los Angeles Times.
The 90-day outlook map shows the northern half of the state in white, which means the region will have equal chances of a dry or wet winter.
A seasonal temperature outlook for the same period indicates that the majority of counties on the central and southern ends of California will experience warmer than average weather.
For the Bay Area and further north, the outlook map says the chances of a warmer winter are just slightly higher than a cold winter.
If meteorologist predictions come true, it would mean the state will endure a third of La Niña. It would be only the third time the weather phase has stuck around for three years since record-keeping began in the early 1950s.
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