These days even a light misting of rain gets people in the Bay excited — we need any and every bit of precipitation that we can get. So we welcome the news that an actual storm is coming to San Francisco next Wednesday, and that it will deposit a predicted quarter to a half inch of water while it's here.

“It’s not a chance. It’s not likely. We ramped this one up to 11, that’s how certain we are that it will impact the area,” Steve Anderson of the National Weather Service told the Chronicle.

But don't dust off those galoshes just yet — the National Weather Service is predicting that weather this weekend will be sunny and in the low 70's, with next week's storm a Wednesday-only affair. Basically, your weekends on either side of the storm should still be sunny enough to spend lounging in the park.

As always, when a storm like this hits after a prolonged absence of rain, the roads become instantly slick and harder to navigate safely.

“The first rain in a while always picks up the oil and dirt and washes them onto the roads,” warned Anderson. “It will definitely cause some traffic problems.”

Wednesday's storm may just be a tiny taste of things to come, with NASA climatologist Bill Patzert predicting that this winter will bring with it a "a Godzilla El Niño."