While we will be seeing rain throughout the day Monday and Tuesday in San Francisco, this is actually the lull before the real storm arrives later on Tuesday.
The promised Pineapple Express set of storms have in fact taken shape and will be taking aim at the Bay Area in earnest by late Tuesday. That will mean both more intense rain as well as gusting winds, which will extend overnight into Christmas Eve.
"There’s going to be quite a bit of rain this week, ongoing," says National Weather Service meteorologist Dylan Behringer, speaking to Bay Area News Group. And this is on top of what has already fallen over the weekend.
According to the weather service, over eight inches of rain has already fallen in parts of northwest Sonoma County, and 10.85 inches had fallen on Mount Tam as of this morning.
But as Behringer puts it, today, Monday, is "kind of a break" before the real business begins Tuesday.
The North Bay and the Peninsula are expected to see another two to three inches of rain Tuesday and Wednesday, and some coastal areas could see destructive winds gusting as high as 70 miles per hour.
Winds are expected to trail off during the day on Wednesday and then pick up again Wednesday night, though the strongest gusts are expected on Tuesday night.
🍍Here's the Pineapple Express! Satellite-derived precipitable water plots courtesy of @UWCIMSS shows a moisture plume extending from the California coast all the way to the subtropical Pacific near Hawaii. #CAwx pic.twitter.com/2TH3ysvnaA
— NWS Bay Area 🌉 (@NWSBayArea) December 22, 2025
The Tahoe region will be seeing its first major storm of the ski season, with a winter storm watch in effect from Tuesday through Friday. As Bay Area News Group reports, the Tahoe area could see wind gusts up to 100 miles per hour as the storm revs up, with two to four feet of snow falling in higher elevations. Palisades Tahoe is likely to see a couple of feet of snow even at its lowest elevations.
The National Weather Service says that travel two and from Lake Tahoe "could be very difficult to impossible" in the next several days, and anyone hoping to spend Christmas up there should probably have left already.
As the Chronicle notes, Christmas Day skiing will be "problematic," because after the snow falls, some of the gustiest winds are expected in the mountains on Thursday.
While it was still uncertain late last week as to whether the incoming Pineapple Express plume of tropical moisture would amount to significant rain and snowfall, that indeed looks like it will be the case, with the Bay in for a very wet Christmas, and Tahoe in for a very white (and windy) one.
Previously: You May Want to Leave Early For Xmas Travel as Storm Takes Aim at Bay Area Next Week
