More Bay Area Rain Could Spell a Wet Thanksgiving After Record-Breaking Storm

After record-breaking rain last week, another atmospheric river is set to hit California on Monday, bringing a chance of rain to the Bay Area every day until Thanksgiving.

This time, the storm will be focused on the Central Coast, and rainfall will be much less significant than last week’s deluge, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Rick Canepa.

The top-end forecast for the San Francisco Peninsula is only about half an inch of rain and 2 inches in the North Bay, while the Central Coast could see up to 4 inches through Tuesday night. Canepa said the heaviest rainfall is expected to hit the Santa Cruz Mountains and south through Big Sur and San Luis Obispo.

“There’ll be a little bit greater rain rates in the mountains, but it’s not terribly moderate or heavy like what we saw last week,” he told KQED.

The Sierra Nevada could see up to 6 inches of snowpack in the mountains higher than 5,500 feet by Tuesday and up to 3 inches around the base and lower elevation areas.

Showers should taper off Wednesday morning across the Bay Area, but forecasters warn that turkey trotters could get wet. The NWS is estimating a 15% to 30% chance of rain on Thursday — though it’s possible those chances will diminish.

It’s more likely that there’ll be light rain on Friday before drier weather sweeps in through the end of the month and into December.

The latest storm comes on the heels of a much larger atmospheric river that hit the Bay Area in two waves last week. Originally forecast to be lighter, the second wave of the storm dropped record-breaking rain on the North Bay and shot San Francisco far past its average annual rainfall on Friday. Hundreds of flights out of San Francisco International Airport were delayed or canceled. Flooding occurred across the city, and two lanes of Highway 101 and Interstate 280 were even closed down.

In North Bay, which took the brunt of the storm, mountainous areas got more than 20 inches of rain, while about a foot fell in downtown Santa Rosa — making it a 1,000-year event, according to the NWS.

After early rains saturated the soil and filled creeks, significant flooding hit Sonoma County on Thursday and Friday. At least 30 roads were closed Thursday due to flooding or downed power lines. All lanes of Highway 121 had to be closed for hours on Friday, and water pooled on Santa Rosa streets.

Floodwater trapped one person in a car, while 150 people had to shelter in place at a Santa Rosa medical center and Hampton Inn when floodwaters cut off access to the buildings, according to Santa Rosa Fire Department division chief Paul Lowenthal.

Sonoma County has recorded two deaths that could be related to the storm. Around noon on Saturday, police discovered a person in a submerged car in Guerneville near Highway 116, where a flood warning was in effect.

The Santa Rosa Police Department also said it recovered a 60-year-old man’s body in Piner Creek at Guerneville Road. Santa Rosa spokesperson Patti Seffens said that the city hadn’t confirmed the circumstances surrounding the death since there were no witnesses to say how the man got into the creek, though the water was at a very high level. She told KQED that she was waiting on more information from the county coroner before declaring any storm-related deaths.

Neither victim has been identified.

KQED’s Sara Hossaini contributed to this report.