It may have felt much like winter early Wednesday and it may feel that way again early Thursday. But to hear the National Weather Service tell it, all the extreme cold signaled was that season’s final gasp.
“Once we get through the next couple of mornings,” NWS meteorologist Joe Merchant said Wednesday, “I think we can put a fork in some of these colder temperatures we’ve been getting.”
How long it may be until the weather service can say the same thing about the rain remains a bit more in question. What is clear is that the rain that fell on the region is done for at least the rest of the week.
“That upper-level (pressure) ridge is gonna start to build, and it will be in place through most of the day Sunday,” Merchant said. “Then we have some activity that may creep into the pattern, but most of that energy is going to be focused to Northern California and Oregon. So going into Monday, the rain chances for the Bay Area could be slight. But really starting Friday it’s gonna be a great weekend.”
The reversal in the weather will come after sporadic showers — some heavy at times — dumped on the region Monday and Tuesday. Over the two days, about 1½ inches fell in areas of the Santa Cruz Mountains and an inch dropped atop Mount Diablo in Contra Costa County, according to the weather service. Half Moon Bay saw about three-quarters of an inch, pacing the Peninsula; two-thirds of an inch fell in downtown San Francisco; a half-inch fell in San Jose and Redwood City, and about one-third of an inch fell in Oakland.
The far East Bay saw trace amounts of rain, between about one-tenth of an inch and one-third of an inch, according to the weather service.
“The showers have exited to the southeast, and the trough that brought the rain also has shifted east,” Merchant said. “But overall, it’s still expanding on the backside, so we’re still getting some cooler air. We haven’t broken free from that air mass entirely.”
That won’t happen until well into Thursday, Merchant said, meaning another night of extreme cold. San Francisco was expected to challenge its daily record for low temperature (43 degrees), and early morning temperatures in the city showed 41 degrees, according to the weather service.
Officials on Wednesday were checking to see if any record lows had fallen earlier in the morning.
In Concord and Livermore, it was 39 degrees, while Napa (37) and Fairfield (31) also dipped into the 30s, according to the weather service. San Jose was at 43.
The high temperatures for the region will stay in the low 60s and high 50s through Wednesday. The highest temperatures this weekend are forecast to be in the low 70s.
“Come Thursday afternoon, things start to warm up,” Merchant said. “Especially inland.”
It will warm up enough that forecasters are eyeballing the possibility that it could get warm enough on Saturday and Sunday to cause a “minor heat risk.”
“We’ll see where that goes as we move to the weekend,” Merchant said.