SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Rainfall totals released by the National Weather Service Bay Area revealed that more than a foot of rain has drenched San Francisco and Oakland within the past 16 days.
On Wednesday afternoon, the NWS posted updated numbers tallied from atmospheric rivers that poured over California between December 26 and January 10.
“In this time, California averaged 8.61 inches of precipitation, and the San Francisco-Oakland metropolitan statistical area averaged 13.34 inches,” NWS forecasters wrote.
16-day rainfall totals
- Downtown San Francisco – 13.59 inches
- Oakland – 12.90 inches (Record-breaker)
- San Francisco International Airport – 11.59 inches (Record-breaker)
- Napa – 11.21 inches
- California – 8.61 (Averaged across the state)
Central California also saw impressive rainfall totals. NWS forecasters wrote, “Large portions of Central California received over half their annual normal precipitation in the past 16 days with the sequence of atmospheric rivers.”
California was slammed by six atmospheric rivers this winter, and at least three more are on the way, Governor Gavin Newsom said at a news conference Tuesday.
“We are soaked. This place is soaked. Now modest precipitation can have equal or greater impact in terms of conditions on the ground,” Newsom said.
“We’re not out of the woods. We expect these storms to continue until at least the 18th. We expect, at minimum, three more of these atmospheric rivers,” Newsom told reporters.
KRON4 Meteorologist Kyla Grogan said there’s still no confirmed end in sight for when sunshine will return based on long-range forecast models.
“The models are just not quite agreeing yet,” she said Wednesday. “The big system sitting off the coast is dragging tropical moisture in what they call a ‘Pineapple Express.’ So when does this end? That is still an open question. What I can say for certain is that it will not be in the next five days.”
“We are going to get some heavy rain (Wednesday) afternoon that rolls through our rush hour unfortunately. Into midnight, we lose the rain for a little bit. All throughout Thursday we will certainly have clouds, but we will stay relatively dry,” Grogan said.
But Thursday’s calmer weather won’t last. The next atmospheric river-generated storm with heavy rain will blow into the Bay Area on Friday. Stormy weather will continue through mid-week next week.
