You've had a two-day reprieve, now get ready to get wet again Tuesday and Wednesday. Two more storm systems are passing through, with one being called a "weak atmospheric river" that will be dumping more rain in Big Sur and Southern California.
The first storm hits Tuesday morning, as KRON 4 reports, with the Central Coast getting the brunt of it.
A storm system is set to impact California Tuesday through Wednesday. Here's the current view as seen by 🛰️ #GOES17. #CAwx pic.twitter.com/HMPIkPNgZu
— NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) March 4, 2019
As CBS SF notes, a winter storm watch goes into effect around Tahoe starting Tuesday morning, and one to three feet of new snow is expected up there through the week.
A second storm system will be hitting late Tuesday and into Wednesday morning, with some more rain likely in the Bay Area. Meteorologists tell the East Bay Times that that storm should dump three-quarts of a inch to an inch of rain on SF and the East Bay. Higher elevations and the North Bay will see more, but Roger Gass with the National Weather Service says that flood risks will remain low for the Russian River and elsewhere.
Tuesday night's "weak atmospheric river," as it's being called, is just the latest in a wet-weather pummeling we've been getting for several weeks straight. As the National Weather Service tweeted Sunday, February 2019 is the 11th wettest February on record in SF, with 7.94 recorded inches of rain.
7.94" of rain was observed in Downtown San Francisco for last month, ranking as the 11th wettest February on record. Normal February rainfall in the City is 4.46". #CAwx #climate pic.twitter.com/MW01DYOzSX
— NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) March 3, 2019
The next storm system will bring rain and wind to the area Tuesday through Wednesday. Impacts include minor flooding of roadways and small streams, small rock/land slides, and isolated power outages. #CAwx pic.twitter.com/LSPQtwwrT7
— NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) March 4, 2019
All this may have some wondering why so little has been said lately about this being an El Niño year, given the Bay Area's strong association with that term and extremely wet winters. The "Godzilla El Niño" of 2015-1016 brought a pretty dry February to the Bay, and the last really super rainy El Niño year here was in 1997-98. Climatologists now say it's too simplistic to assume that an El Niño pattern necessarily leads to more rain in California — it doesn't always.
This year's El Niño was officially declared in mid-February, and as Jan Null of Golden Gate Weather Services told SFGate last week, we simply can't count on all El Niño years to yield rain in this region.
Meteorologist Michelle L'Heureux echoed that in talking to SFGate last month, saying that for the Bay Area, other weather phenomena such as the "Madden Julian Oscillation," as well as climate change, could be having bigger effects.
