An all-too-quick encounter with gorgeous spring weather is likely to lift areas of the Bay Area into record-breaking heat Monday and Tuesday before giving way to a bit more precipitation mid-week and the chances for a heavy storm come the weekend.
It’s all in keeping with the up-and-down nature of the early spring climate, according to the National Weather Service.
“It’s a building of high pressure, but it’s a quick one,” NWS meteorologist Brayden Murdock said Monday. “We won’t see a lot of it. It’s a quick spring-style ridge that will be pushed out of the way pretty strongly from lower pressure by Wednesday.”
That lower pressure is expected to bring about one-tenth of an inch of rain to areas near San Francisco by Wednesday, before a heavier storm system from the Gulf of Alaska follows it with as much as a half-inch of rain, Murdock said.
Until then, the weather will be about as friendly as it comes. Sun will bathe the region on Monday and Tuesday, and temperatures will climb into the 70s and possibly into the 80s in some areas, the weather service said.
One of the warmer spots was expected to be Oakland. The weather service forecast a high on Monday of 81 degrees, which would shatter the previous hot temperature for the day of 75, set in 1997. The weather service said it also is likely to hit 80 degrees Tuesday, which would break the the mark of 75 set in 1988.
“It’s going to be warm everywhere, but there are some longstanding records that are going to stay that way,” Murdock said. “So you won’t see records falling all over the place. You might see some.”
The high-pressure ridge will build in thickness along the South Bay on Tuesday, and areas near San Jose are expected to top out at 87 degrees, four degrees higher than the Monday forecast.
Murdock said it’ll all be a memory by a Wednesday as the high pressure dips, clouds reappear and temperatures drop again into the mid-60s. The stormier weather is expected to come through late Saturday night.
“That one looks as if it’s going to be a lot stronger than the one mid-week,” Murdock said.
The weather service anticipates rain into Monday from the stronger storm. Murdock said it remains to be seen just how long it will take for that system to move through the area.