A cold front passing through Northern California will bring wind and rain late Wednesday to parts of the Bay Area that will spread through the region by Thursday, according to a bulletin from the National Weather Service.
A cold front passing through Northern California will bring wind and rain late Wednesday to parts of the Bay Area that will spread through the region by Thursday, according to a bulletin from the National Weather Service.
Most of the Bay Area will see at least 1 inch of rain Thursday, with some areas in the North Bay and the coast of Santa Cruz and Monterey counties seeing 1.5 inches or more.
The heaviest predicted rainfall is for just south of the Big Sur area and north of Bodega Bay and Santa Rosa, where up to 4 inches of rain could fall.
In the South Bay, the city of Willow Glen is asking people to clean up leaves and waste in their yards so that when rain hits, they won't block the drains and cause flooding.
Resident Janet Aldama has lived in the area for 53 years and said the falling foliage can cause problems when it rains.
"Well, if you don't, then it kind of floods and it's harder to push the leaves away when it gets wet," she said. "So we try to keep it clear."
San Jose , which is expected to get between 1-1.5 inches of rain, has crews clearing leaves and debris so the city's 35,000 storm drains don't back up.
The work in the city started in the summer and continues through the winter. More teams are on standby for when the atmospheric river storms in.
"We've got people who are working, we've got people who are on-call, we've got a storm fighting plan ready anytime we see significant rain in the forecast," explained Colin Heyne, San Jose DOT Public Information Manager.
They even painted white arrows on the sidewalk near drains, so if it floods there, the next crew will know where it needs to be cleared out.
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"We are going to be watching, monitoring and also waiting for calls for the public - and we appreciate those calls," Heyne said. "If you see local flooding, backed up storm drains, give us a call and we'll be out there as fast as possible to fix that situation."
Across the region, PG&E is also preparing for what they expect to be a moderately severe storm.
In the East Bay, crews are also clearing up leaves and vegetation that could block the roadways.
"Really, in a storm the thing that probably impacts the electrical system is the thing that we all love - trees," said Aaron Johnson, PG&E Regional Vice-president. "Downed powerlines from vegetation coming in contact with our lines, trees falling over, limbs - that is the number one impact.
The utility said it's stockpiling power poles, power lines and other electrical equipment, so it can restore power quickly.
"One of the hot spots of this storm will be in San Mateo County on the Peninsula," said Johnson.
In the event of an outage, people are advised to use flashlights instead of candles to avoid the chance of a fire, to have fresh drinking water and ice on hand, and to never touch downed power lines.
PG&E customers can report outages, look up the status of existing outages, or sign up for automatic outage notifications at https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/outages/alerts/alerts.page.
The East Bay is expecting to see about half an inch o 1 inch of rain, and East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) is keeping an eye on the weather and how it can impact their waste water system.
"When the rain comes some of the water that gets into the ground can infiltrate that waste water system, can seep into our pipes and so it increases the load of waste water we also process," explained Christopher Tritto with EBMUD.
The utility district explains it's still too early to tell how the winter weather will impact the drought. To reach normal rain levels, EBMUD needs more than 30 inches of rain in the watershed by spring.
Forecasters predict Friday will be dry in most areas -- but perhaps some early morning rain on the coast in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties, with rain returning for the weekend for the entire region.
Weekend rainfall totals will be significantly smaller, with most areas forecast to receive a half-inch or less.
In addition, inland areas could see some frosty mornings between Wednesday and Monday.
Saturday morning is forecast to see the coldest temperatures, with most of the Bay Area dipping into the mid to low 30s. The exceptions will be in San Francisco and in Big Sur, where the overnight lows are expected to remain in the 40s.
