A FEW WEEKEND SHOWERS. MODERATE TO STRONG STORM LIKELY IN THE NORTH BAY LATE MONDAY.

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There’s still lots of uncertainty about our next significant storm arriving in the North Bay on Monday. Forecast models continue to disagree on details like timing, rainfall amounts, and tropical moisture connections. But there is enough consensus to paint a reasonable picture of what we have in store.

We may see a few showers as a disturbance passes north of us late Friday into Saturday. (Image 1) We may receive a tenth of an inch or less in the North Bay.

By Monday afternoon a much more significant storm arrives as low pressure deepens off the West Coast. (Image 2)

Models currently have the rain, occasionally heavy, arriving in the North Bay by mid to late afternoon on Monday. (Image 3)

The Canadian and GFS show a deep moisture tap setting up. The location has varied in the past few days. Current thinking is largely on the central coast of CA. (Image 4) This would bring heavy rain where it makes landfall. This will likely change in the coming days. (Image 5)

It is important to note that the location of the moisture “bullseye” has varied from the Oregon border to central California in the past 48 hours. This will need to be fine tuned before the storm arrives on Monday.

Rainfall amounts for us in the North Bay? Pretty healthy, ranging from an inch to two inches, and perhaps much more in the hills due to orographic enhancement. A pretty average winter storm in a normal year, and certainly welcome in November!

Rain will likely begin Monday afternoon, be heaviest Monday overnight into Tuesday AM, then taper off after that.

Here is how the major models see this storm playing out, at present. This will certainly need to be updated as the higher resolution models come into play this weekend. (Images 6, 7,

This will not be a strong atmospheric river storm like the big one on October 24th. But it will likely bring us rainfall over an inch in many areas. We’ll post again this weekend as the event nears.