Rain to return after colder than average, dry weekend
After a rainy week, Bay Area residents can expect a brief — and chilly — reprieve over the weekend before rainfall sweeps through once again early next week.
The Bay Area can expect cold and dry conditions and clear skies through Sunday, according to Roger Gass, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Friday night and Saturday morning will bring temperatures in the 30s across the Bay Area before warming up a few degrees on Sunday.
The weekend's cold temperatures will be around 5 to10 degrees lower than average for this time of year because of the dry air, he explained.
“These cold temperatures do have a pretty big impact on those without adequate heating or access to shelters,” he noted, “so folks are encouraged to check on their family and friends that may have limited access to those basic needs for shelter and ability to keep warm.”
Early next week,
things are still “looking promising” for more much-needed precipitation.
An upper level low pressure system off of the coast will “meander” across the Bay Area next week, bringing rain across the region, Gass said.
However, the slower development of the system — different from the specific, pointed stretches of moisture associated
with atmospheric rivers — makes it hard to know exactly when and where the rain will fall, he explained.
“There is still a lot of uncertainty in exactly how the weather pattern is going to play out and specifically which days are going to be wet, but overall we're going to move back into an unsettled pattern — a return to cool and rainy weather,” he said.
Still, he said, there will likely be substantial rainfall across the Bay Area, including a couple of inches in San Francisco, 3 inches in the North Bay Valleys and anywhere from 3 to 6 inches in the coastal ranges.