Rain leads to deadly crashes on roadways
Fatalities in Emeryville, Sausalito shut lanes for hours
A storm that moved through the region early Sunday caused havoc on Bay Area highways as multiple crashes and fatalities were reported.
Showers started moving into San Francisco and the northern parts of Alameda and Contra Costa counties Sunday morning, said Drew Peterson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
“It’s decent rainfall rates,” Peterson said.
Eastbound lanes on Interstate 80 were shut down for several hours in Emeryville after a Ford sedan spun out on the Berkeley Curve and rammed sideways into a pickup truck around 9:40 a.m., said Officer Matthew Hamer of the California Highway Patrol.
A passenger in the sedan was killed in the collision, and the three other passengers, including a juvenile,
were transported to the hospital for “precautionary reasons,” Hamer added.
Multiple lanes on Highway 101 in Sausalito were also closed for several hours because of a fatal crash, causing significant delays in traffic toward the Golden Gate Bridge.
A man in his early 30s died when his white van rolled over in the middle of the highway about 8:30 a.m., said Battalion Chief Kai Pasquale with the Southern Marin Fire District.
“We strongly recommend that people take weather conditions into account when they are driving on the freeways and adjust their speed accordingly,” Hamer said.
The precipitation was cleared out in the afternoon, and the rainfall shifted toward Santa Cruz, Monterey and Salinas. Winds picked up, with gusts reaching 25 mph in San Francisco. .
Despite the brief reprieve in the afternoon, the rain was forecast to return overnight, with the heaviest amount of precipitation expected in the North Bay, Peterson said.
Santa Rosa — including vulnerable areas scarred by last month’s firestorm — along with Napa, Novato and Sebastopol could get up to an inch and a half of rain.
Since the wildfires that started Oct. 8, destroying more than 8,800 structures and killing 43 people, officials have been monitoring the burn areas throughout storms to ensure that landslides don’t cause even more damage. But Peterson didn’t expect any heavy debris flows.
“We don’t have a high level of concern for the burn scar areas,” Peterson said.
Elsewhere in the Bay Area, rainfall totals were expected to barely reach an inch.
San Francisco and Oakland should receive two-thirds of an inch of rain. The South Bay could receive about a third of an inch, and a half inch is expected in Concord, Walnut Creek, Pleasanton and Dublin.
Monday morning “might be a little messy commute,” Peterson said.
The rain should subside by 10 a.m., paving the way for a dry week ahead, he added.
Temperatures will remain in the low to mid-60s from Monday through the rest of the week for the Bay Area, which is seasonally normal, Peterson said.
The past several days have been unusually warm in the Bay Area, with some areas hitting record temperatures, Peterson said.
In San Jose, Saturday’s temperatures reached 80 degrees, breaking a 1959 record of 76 degrees. Gilroy also set a record Saturday with temperatures reaching 78 degrees, breaking the 1959 record of 77 degrees.
Motorists leaving Lake Tahoe on Sunday were warned to be mindful of snow accumulating throughout the area beginning about 10 a.m., Peterson said.
Up to 8 inches of snow is expected at 6,000 feet, and at least a foot of snow above 7,000 feet, Peterson said. Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani