More rain adds to needed moisture
The second “atmospheric river” storm in recent weeks brought rainfall to the Bay Area late Monday and early Tuesday before showers faded in the afternoon.
The atmospheric river — a narrow, moisture-rich system — brought widespread rain to the region starting Monday night. It was forecast to be a weak storm, a 1 on the UC San Diego Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes’ scale of 1-5, with 5 being the strongest.
As of 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, 24-hour precipitation totals included: 4.88 inches at Middle Peak at Mount Tamalpais, 1.50 inches in Santa Rosa, 1.77 inches at Ben Lomond, 1.32 inches at Mount Diablo, 0.58 inches at the Oakland international airport, 0.90 inches in downtown San Francisco, 0.02 inches at the San Jose international airport and 0.10 inches in Fremont.
The “cold sector of the storm system” continued into Tuesday, with “hit-ormiss showers that have an equal chance to hit anywhere” in the Bay Area, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Drew Peterson. The rain tapered off in the afternoon, with partly cloudy to cloudy skies remaining over much of the region for the rest of the day. Dry conditions were expected for the rest of the week.
“This system relative to the October one was significantly less impactful,” Peterson said. “The rain from this storm was entirely beneficial in that it’s going to help our water year and there were no significant flooding impacts.”
Lower elevations in the Bay Area were expected to get an additional quarter of an inch of rain while the hills and mountains around the South Bay, including the Santa Cruz Mountains, could receive another half an inch of rain.
Comcast users reported service outages late Monday
throughout the Bay Area and there were reports of downed trees and power lines in Sonoma County.
“Some customers experienced intermittent service disruptions as a result of a network issue,” said Comcast spokesperson Joan Hammel on Tuesday morning. “We have addressed the issue and service is now restoring for impacted customers, as we continue to investigate the root cause. We apologize to those who were affected.”
Winds were strong overnight after picking up around 10 p.m., with reports of gusts as high as 73 mph in the Santa Cruz mountains and widespread gusts across the Bay Area of 25 to 40 mph.
Green Valley Creek saw minor flooding while the majority of the region only had “nuisance flooding” due to clogged drains or in low-lying areas, according to the weather service.
While some areas “underperformed” in terms of rainfall, Peterson said: “Any rain that we get is going to be beneficial for the water year and drought conditions.”
However, Peterson added that “one storm isn’t going to make a difference, especially one storm where the rainfall amounts were for most locations under one inch. For the October 24 storm, if you put that in the context of the rest of the year, we’re still only at about 80% to 90% of normal. We’re behind in the year but catching up after having two back-to-back water years that were less than half of normal. We still have a full year of water supply to catch up on.”
Most of the Bay Area’s significant wildfire risk was quelled by the Oct. 24 storm, a 5 on the UC San Diego Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes’ scale, that drenched the region with 4.05 inches of rain in one day in San Francisco, making it the city’s wettest October day ever and the fourth-wettest day dating back to the 1849 Gold Rush.