Showers, Possible Thunder Tonight and Saturday AM

Share with Friends

An unusual closed low pressure system is headed straight for the Bay Area and will bring showers and the chance of thundershowers to the North Bay late tonight and Saturday.

The low is moving in from the southwest, and tapping moisture that’s two times normal for this date.

You can see the low in this water vapor image.

For the rest of Friday, the low will move northeast and bring showers to the central coast. Those showers will gradually move toward us through the night and into Saturday morning.

As the cold low pressure center moves inland, the chance of showers and scattered thundershowers will increase across the North Bay, mostly early Saturday morning through midday.

Here’s a closer look at possible rainfall amounts. Mostly they range from a tenth to a quarter of an inch but you can see the potential for up to an inch or more in the hills of Sonoma County and Northern California, especially where convective thundershowers pop up.

The National Weather Service is putting the chance for rain at 60 percent tonight, and 70 percent Saturday. Any lightning that takes place obviously raises the risk of fires, but at this point due to the recent rains the large fuels are still holding some moisture. For that reason, and the fact that thundershowers will be rare, the NWS has not issued fire weather advisories at this time.

After the low moves out late on Saturday, we can expect pretty seasonable temperatures through the coming week. Since the area will be under low pressure troughing, no big warmups are expected at least through the end of the coming week with temperature generally in the 70s to mid 80s inland.