One of the wildest winters in years added a new jolt of excitement to the Bay Area this weekend: thunderstorms.
Not to mention hail and gusty winds. And, yes, a winter weather advisory with more snow forecast Sunday in the east foothills and mountains from the North Bay into Santa Clara County.
“This active weather pattern that we’re seeing is not going away — winter is not done with us,” said David King a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Bay Area.
On Saturday, a brief spell of scattered thunder, lightning and pea-sized hail passed over the region from the East Bay to the Peninsula and up to the Sonoma Coast. A second front was expected to arrive by Sunday morning, ushering in up to 60 mph wind gusts and snow at elevations as low as 1,500 feet in parts of the North Bay and 2,000 feet in much of the East Bay and South Bay.
Hey we had lightningwith an immediate thunderous roar instantly. Then the hailstorm over the San Mateo County Coastline. pic./TNXNbhRMqD
— Stanley Roberts () March 4, 2023
In response, the National Weather Service issued a winter weather advisory for the North Bay interior mountains, East Bay hills and Santa Clara hills — cautioning residents of downed trees, power outages and low visibility on roadways during snow showers.
Despite the warnings, King said forecasters aren’t expecting the same level of snowfall that on Feb. 24 blanketed many lower-elevation parts of the region with the most significant snowfall since 2011.
“This isn’t nearly the kind of system that we saw last week,” King said.
Still, the North Bay could see up to 10 inches of snow this weekend, while other areas could see 2 to 5 inches. Weekend rainfall totals, meanwhile, were forecast to reach about a half-inch for most of the Bay Area and up to 1.75 inches in the mountains along the coast and in the North Bay.
Experts said the storm was driven by the latest blast of unstable air, the same phenomenon that has sent storm after storm over the Bay Area since the beginning of the year. Looking ahead to early next week, forecasters are monitoring the chances of more rain and snow and overnight temperatures dropping below freezing in many inland areas.
In the Sierra Nevada Mountains, a heavy storm was expected to dump up to 3 to 5 feet of …read more
Source:: The Mercury News