After one-day blip, Bay Area’s dry winter weather to return

A weather pattern with high barometric pressure that has remained firmly in its place for much of January is about to rebuild again after a brief 24-hour break that allowed a small amount of rain to leak into areas of the Bay Area on Tuesday.

For areas such as the East Bay and South Bay, it’s anyone’s guess as to when they may see some more.

“The showers have generally subsided,” National Weather Service meteorologist Rachel Kennedy said. “A couple are still drifting toward Monterey Bay, but it’s basically done. Now, the high pressure is going to build back, and it’s going to get warmer and drier.”

The warmer-and-drier pattern has been in place since early January, generally one of the Bay Area’s wettest months. The measurable rain on Tuesday was the first in the region since Jan 6. The 21-day dry spell was the longest winter break from rain since 1997, and the longest exclusively in January since 1992, according to Bay Area weather expert Jan Null.

Not much fell. In the North Bay, a quarter-inch fell on Mt. Veeder in Napa County and in Mill Valley in Marin County in the 24 hours before 7 a.m. Wednesday. Orinda received six-hundredths of an inch, while Oakland got .03 inches and Concord .02 inches. The weather stayed bone dry in San Jose and about .01 inches fell in Santa Cruz County.

Now expected are some heat and some tule fog

“We do start to see the fog in the East Bay and North Bay become more prominent (Wednesday) night and into Thursday,” Kennedy said.

That will be one of the by-products of the high pressure building again along the northern part of the state, creating a ridge that will prevent storms from descending into the region. Another result will be that temperatures will return to the mid–to-high 60s in the East Bay and perhaps as high as the low 70s in the South Bay. Kennedy said that in the Santa Cruz Mountains and along Monterey County, temperatures even could rise above 75.

The weather service issued a beach hazards statement beginning at 9 p.m. Wednesday through 9 a.m. Friday, as waves are expected to break from 14 to 19 feet.

The pattern will stay in place “until at least the first part of the weekend,” she said. “There is a very weak system that has the potential to move down and drop a little rain on Sunday and Monday. But that would be even lighter rain than this one, and really only the North Bay is gonna feel it.”