Atmospheric river delivers rare June rain to the Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO -- A rare June atmospheric river of weak-to-moderate strength brought some respectable rain to the North Bay and other parts of the region overnight Sunday that will continue into the early afternoon.
About an inch of rain has fallen along the Sonoma Coast, with Santa Rosa seeing nearly the equivalent of the entire month of June's average rain in just the past 24 hours. Further south in San Francisco, sprinkles that had drivers using their windshield wipers started shortly before midnight.
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While light rain has fallen across much of the rest of the Bay, totals are fairly light from the Golden Gate south with less than .1 of an inch in general so far. The Berkeley Hills received about .3 inches.
The light showers will continue throughout much of Sunday morning and into the early afternoon before clearing. By 11:15 a.m., the Bay Area office of the National Weather Service confirmed that San Francisco had set a record for rainfall on this date, breaking the previous high of .15 inches on June 5, 1934.
The precipitation is being driven by the increased amount of the water in the atmosphere, which is at about 200% of average for what you would expect to see off the California coast in the month of June.
By 2 p.m. or so, most of the rain will be over.
A big warm up looms at the end of this coming week with temperatures near 100 for some of our warmest inland locations.
Following the storm, a high-pressure system will start building over the regions bringing seasonably warm temperatures early next week, and trending hotter inland by Thursday and Friday, the weather service said.
