Bay Area clear and dry for Presidents Day

But don’t put away that umbrella just yet, forecaster says

The Bay Area will get a break from the rain, just in time for Presidents Day, though by the middle of the week, things could be wet yet again, forecasters said.

While rain fell across parts of the Bay Area in the overnight and early morning hours Sunday — leaving roads wet and a fresh dusting of snow on higher-elevation peaks like Mount Hamilton — that may have been the last punch from the storm system that soaked the Bay Area over the past week.

“What is happening right now is a cold system from the Pacific Northwest is beginning to exit the region, or the impacts from it are beginning to dwindle,” Scott Rowe, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Monterey, said Sunday morning.

Today, Presidents Day, and Tuesday should be dry and mostly clear, with daytime temperatures around the mid50s for much of the Bay Area, offering a respite from consistent wet weather.

“A nice little change from the very unsettled pattern that we’ve been experiencing over the last week or two,” Rowe said.

The overnight conditions will still be very cold today and Tuesday, with people in much of the East Bay and South Bay waking up to temperatures in the 30s, Rowe said.

“It is winter after all, so this is the time of year for us to be on the chilly side,” he said.

By Wednesday, Rowe said, another weather system from the Pacific Northwest will bring more rain, though not a full-fledged soaking.

“I would expect more showery conditions,” Rowe said. “Nothing like a widespread heavy downpour lasting for multiple hours, but just off and on rain

showers, periods of sunshine even, but enough to need an umbrella for the day.”

He said that system should be tapering off by Thursday afternoon.

The region should wrap up the workweek dry and mostly sunny, with cool weather.

Rowe said forecasters are keeping an eye on another system that could bring more wet weather to Northern California around the latter part of next weekend, but that could change.

ANDA CHU — STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Mountain bikers ride past the spillway at the Lexington Reservoir just south of Los Gatos on Saturday. As a result of recent storms, the reservoir filled to the top and began spilling over its spillway Friday into Los Gatos Creek.