POSSIBLE WETTING SHOWERS LATE THURSDAY INTO FRIDAY, THEN DRY AND WARM.

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OVERVIEW
Temperatures are fall-like across the North Bay after a weak cold front provided a bit of cool air to the northern half of the state. Another, slightly stronger front will bring a chance of showers late Thursday PM into early Friday. After that, the outlook appears dry through the end of the month.

SOME MOISTURE FRIDAY
The best chance of rain for the next two weeks looks to come Thursday afternoon. A weak system will bring rain to our north, and showers around the North Bay. Totals will be light, perhaps a tenth of an inch, or two. (Images 1, 2, 3) Pretty unexciting after our wet period in mid to late October.

NORTH BAY HAD GREAT OCTOBER
Fortunately those big storms gave us a good start. This graphic shows which counties were most impacted. Sonoma and Napa counties set all time October rainfall records. (Image 4)

DRY AND WARM END OF NOVEMBER
Looking ahead, the European model sees drier than normal weather for California through November 29th. (Image 5) Meantime, with high pressure in charge, temperatures will be above normal for November….70s will be common in California. (Image 6)

And, with La Nina strengthening, most long range signals are pretty dry. Not to say completely dry….but ensemble forecasts (many combined runs averaged) show significant rain staying north through the end of the month. (Image 7)

Despite La Nina though, most seasonal forecasts still see NorCal (Bay Area north) receiving in the range of 75% or more of normal rain this winter.

GFS MAY SEE CHANGE AHEAD
For now though the European and other models show high pressure in control through the 26th. The best we see at this point are hints in the GFS long range of a return of low pressure around the end of the month, bringing rain. (Images 8 and 9) Teleconnections among seasonal patterns may be changing by then, and it could be the GFS is picking up on that.

Of course, all of this is still much too far out to have any confidence. However, for perspective, this graphic (Image 10) shows that key weather stations in Northern California have received as much rain as falls by late December in an “average” year. We are off to a good start. And much, much better than last year.