"The storm door is about to open," says ABC 7 meteorologist Mike Nicco, as we look toward the weekend and into next week with storm activity moving our way.

The weather has already turned very chilly compared to earlier in the week, returning to more typical January temperatures. As the National Weather Service reports, there were below-freezing temps scattered across the region early this morning, and that pattern will continue as a storm arrives Friday.

The first in the series of weather systems coming our direction is a "1" in terms of intensity, Nicco says, with mostly scattered showers on Friday morning. But because of the chilly temperatures, some parts of the Bay may see hail or graupel, which is a hybrid of snow and hail.

Saturday is another clear and sunny day with more typical seasonal highs in the 50s, but then more widespread and heavier rain arrives Sunday and into Monday, with snow possible at higher elevations.

There's then another brief break possible Tuesday, and even more rain is expected Wednesday. Nicco says this last band of rain is more of an atmospheric river, and will be a "2" on his storm scale.

This is good news for the still crispy parts of the region after a terrible fire season. We've been in drought conditions thus far, with minimal rainfall this winter, but hopefully by March or April we will catch up to seasonal averages.

As we reported last week, normal rainfall in downtown SF by mid-January would be around 10.7 inches, but so far this season we've only seen 3.1 inches.

Now all we have to worry about are landslides.

Photo: Gabriele Diwald