Onslaught of rain coming to Bay Area, state

Batten down the hatches, because San Francisco’s wet and wild winter is set to continue, with the National Weather Service [NWS} predicting almost a solid week of precipitation across the Bay Area.

Rain that began falling Friday afternoon will most likely let up on Saturday, according to the NWS forecast, which calls for only a 20 percent chance of showers Saturday morning and then cloudy weather at night.

But that will be the last likely reprieve for some time; indicators all suggest “rain likely” starting again Sunday and continuing through Thursday of next week as part of what the forecast calls “an onslaught of moisture” across the state.

According to the Weather Channel’s San Francisco forecast, there is a small but significant chance that rain will continue even beyond that, without about a 30 percent chance of precipitation next Friday and 40 percent on Saturday, making for a potential solid seven-day week of storms.

In all, the city could see nearly four inches of rainfall over the course of the next week. According to Golden Gate Weather Services, January is typically one of the wettest months in the city; historic rain records for the month range as high as 24.36 inches, a record set back in 1861.

The median for the month over the past three years is 7.22 inches, but in 2014 the monthly rainfall was zero in the city, and the two years before that just 0.06 and 0.49 respectively.

According to the new map released by the US Drought Monitor on Thursday, San Francisco, the East Bay, and parts of the North Bay and Peninsula are no longer in drought conditions, although “moderate drought” persists throughout the rest of the Bay Area.

• SF Seven Day Forecast [NWS]
• SF Ten Day Forecast [Weather.com]
• SF Historic Rainfall [GG Weather]
• California Drought Map [US Drought Monitor]