As another Tuesday approached, so, too, did another foreboding storm, promising at least some of the same menace as the two previous ones to whip through the region.
By now, all that’s needed is the theme music from “Jaws.”
“We’re gonna see the winds increase,” National Weather Service meteorologist Rick Canepa said Monday afternoon. “We’re gonna see more rain. It’s going to be cold. And you’re going to see it along all the coastal sections from Sonoma County all the way down to Monterey County, into the Santa Cruz Mountains and along the East Bay Hills.
“All of the locations in the region will see similar conditions.”
And so it goes. Lately, if it’s Tuesday, a nasty weather system is swallowing the region.
On March 21, a furious atmospheric river storm clobbered the Bay Area, ushered in 70 mph winds and killed five people. On March 14, winds hit nearly 100 mph. Both of those storms left trees down, thousands of people without power and areas flooded.
The one set to hit late Monday or overnight Tuesday already has put the region into a deep chill. The low temperature in San Francisco on Monday was a record-cold 41 degrees, breaking by one degree a mark that had stood for 125 years. Oakland also had a record low of 41 degrees, breaking a mark set in 1991. Redwood City was 33, two degrees colder than its previous cold mark set in 1972.
As for the winds, they are expected to gust between 40 to 55 degrees in the East Bay and eastern Santa Clara hills, as well as in the North Bay hills. A wind advisory by the weather service was in place through Tuesday afternoon.
The strongest winds were expected to come between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m., according to the weather service. Forecasters at the weather service said the winds will not be as powerful as the previous two storms, but that trees and debris still are likely.
“It will be shorter fused, so not as bad,” meteorologist Sarah McCorkle said, adding that people should still keep their guard up. “But still given that soils are so saturated and trees are weakened, it still poses a risk for fallen trees.”
More storm also is expected to fall in the Sierra Nevada, with a winter storm warning in effect from 5 a.m. Tuesday until 5 a.m. Wednesday. The weather service was forecasting 8-to-16 inches of snow.
Unlike last week’s storm, the low pressure is further to the north — about 200 miles west or Oregon on Monday afternoon, according to the weather service — and so the region won’t feel the full weight of the low-pressure center as it did a week ago.
The unstable air from this storm is expected to last into Wednesday, Canepa said, and the region is “likely to see heavy, passing showers on Wednesday, as well as a thunderstorm or two” in between dry periods.
Not until Wednesday night or early Thursday will the region begin to dry out, he said.