Forecast models continue to show the potential for a wet weekend ahead. #cawx #bayarearain pic.twitter.com/pS4kxbQsuS
— NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) November 15, 2016
The cold snap that began last night with temperatures low enough to kill plants left outside will soon be the least of weather-sensitive peoples' complaints, as forecasters say that rain Saturday is a near inevitability.
You might have noticed that it got cold last night — out in a relatively light coated cotton jacket, I certainly did! — and the Chron confirms this morning that "a cold front passed through Tuesday," so "chilly air filtered into Northern and Central California, allowing frost to develop amid clear skies and light winds" Wednesday night.
As the old saying doesn't go, temperatures typically get lowest right before dawn. Today was no exception, with San Francisco hitting a low of 49 just after 6:15 this morning. While cold, it's not a record, the Chron reports: The all-time recorded low for November 17 in SF was set in 1994, a shiver-inducing 44. Things got cooler outside the city, with Santa Rosa dropping to 35 this morning and Livermore to 38.
Things got so cold near Ocean Beach that I completely closed my bedroom windows for the first night this year, learning the hard way that the dog I adopted in March has a much worse nighttime flatulence issue than I had previously understood. But all this talk of low temps and dog farts is immaterial, as by tomorrow night, says the National Weather Service, there's an 80 percent chance of rainfall in San Francisco.
That rain will continue through Saturday, NWS forecasters say (KRON 4 predicts a "100 percent chance" of showers, as well), with as much as half an inch of rain falling that day. There's a 70 percent chance that rain will continue through Sunday, they predict, with things drying out by Monday night.
Then again, it seems like half the time I write these things, it ends up being dry as a bone. In this topsy-turvy world, who can say? Maybe tomorrow it will rain jelly beans! Maybe I inhaled too much toxic dog gas and died, and am a ghost now. Anything seems possible these days.