This week’s forecast shows mostly dry skies, but the influence of El Niño is expected to bring higher-than-normal rainfall in January and February, according to a regional weather forecaster.
“Our wet weather is just beginning,” said Steve Anderson, a forecaster with the National Weather Service’s forecast office for Monterey and the San Francisco Bay Area. “We have more on the way. It hasn’t turned off. It’s just barely getting started.”
In the short term, dry weather is expected Wednesday, there’s a chance of rain Thursday and then dry weather returns Friday and Saturday, the forecaster said.
El Niño’s impact on the West Coast is expected to be strongest in January or February, bringing more rain than has fallen so far, Anderson explained.
“All I can say is it will be above normal,” he said. “It could be one inch above normal or 10 inches above normal. We just don’t know.”
But January and February storms won’t solve the state’s water problem, Anderson cautioned.
“I can say it won’t get us out of the drought this year, for sure,” he said.
