After a warm, dry weekend across Northern California, wet weather is forecast to return this week. Widespread rain and the strongest winds so far this season are predicted in the Bay Area, North Coast, Sacramento Valley and Sierra Nevada as an atmospheric river-fueled storm sweeps through the region.
The parent storm, a broad low-pressure system over the Pacific Ocean, will be nearly 1,000 miles northwest of San Francisco, but its counterclockwise spin will guide a long plume of water vapor from near Hawaii toward California. Scientifically, this is known as an atmospheric river, a common feature of West Coast storms.
This week’s atmospheric river won’t last as long as the one that flooded parts of Northern California last November, but it’ll pack a punch in a short time…