The Bay Area won't get much of a break between atmospheric river storms this week, even though meteorologists had earlier assured us that we'd have a fairly dry weekend until Sunday.
There was a bout of heavy rain in San Francisco around 7 am Friday, and intermittent rain may continue throughout the day, forecasters say, due to an area of low pressure and plenty of moisture in the atmosphere.
You may even encounter showers Friday night around the Bay, and our brief window of dry weather will just be today, if it doesn't rain on you, and on Saturday morning.
This is starting to feel more like last winter, when the rain just kept coming for weeks on end, it seemed, with just brief breaks in between.
When the heaviest rain arrives this time appears to be up for debate.
"Saturday night into Sunday is predicted to be the window for the heaviest rainfall, but this could change between now and then," says National Weather Service meteorologist Nicole Sarment, speaking to SFGate.
KTVU, meanwhile, says, "The heaviest rain will fall Sunday afternoon until Monday morning."
What's clear enough is that the incoming storm will be bigger and more impactful than what we saw between Wednesday and Thursday, and the National Weather Service is predicting "nuisance as well as minor flooding."
There is now a flood watch in effect for the region from 4 pm Saturday until 10 am Monday. And scattered showers are expected to continue into Tuesday and Wednesday.
San Francisco is expected to receive anoother two to three inches of rain in total, but the Santa Cruz Mountains and Big Sur could see significantly more.
Jan Null, a meteorologist with Golden Gate Weather Services, tells SFGate that unlike this more recent storm, the storm arriving Saturday is hitting the Central Coast first, with the moisture spreading out to both Southern and Northern California.
"This is not a typical scenario that we see," Null said.
Confidence is increasing for another impactful storm system to move through Sunday into Monday. This storm looks to be more focused towards the Central Coast, but still fine tuning the details so stay tuned. Here's a look at rainfall probabilities of 2+" and 4+" Sun-Mon. #CAwx pic.twitter.com/DQ8OH0yOB2
— NWS Bay Area 🌉 (@NWSBayArea) February 1, 2024