A February weather pattern marked by high pressure, sun and mostly pleasant days has given way in March to one that has brought a lowering of pressure and the arrival of cold and often rainy weather.
Don’t expect that change anytime soon, the National Weather Service said.
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“The hemispheric pattern is active, and the (system) is locking onto some water vapor,” NWS meteorologist Rick Canepa said early Tuesday. “So it looks favorable for (storm) development into at least mid-month. It’s not unusual. March is normally our fourth-wettest month.”
The next step in the storm development is expected to bring a decent amount of rain to the South Bay and Central Coast by later Tuesday. Canepa said that rain could last into Wednesday morning before another “reinforcement coming behind it” is expected to bring additional rain late Wednesday into Thursday.
The weather service said the most intense rain from both systems are likely to be along the Peninsula and into the South Bay, Central Coast and Santa Cruz Mountains. Those areas all are expected to receive between a half-inch to a full inch of rain from the two systems.
Rainfall is expected to be considerably less in the East Bay and North Bay part of the region. Livermore is expected to receive between two-tenths and a half-inch, while areas of Contra Costa, Alameda, Napa and Sonoma counties are expected to receive only a smattering of the wet stuff.
“There will be a little more state-wide precipitation with the second one,” Canepa said.
The rain will fall amid continued cold temperatures. Temperatures are not expected to rise out of the 50s until Friday, and the overnight lows are expected to dip into the low 40s in most places. They will be in the high 30s in areas of the far East Bay.
That will change a bit over the weekend, according to Canepa. Low temperatures overnight will remain just as low, but the high temperatures are expected to rise back into the mid-60s amid dry skies.
After the weekend, the weather service said more rain will arrive. Canepa said more progress in the weather pattern will help them determine how severe that precipitation will be.
