Local residents should keep their raincoats and umbrellas handy
as the National Weather Service has promised that Monday will not
be the last rainy day this week.
Local residents should keep their raincoats and umbrellas handy as the National Weather Service has promised that Monday will not be the last rainy day this week.
A cold front is expected to enter the area Friday night, bringing with it high winds and more rain – perhaps a lot more, a NWS spokesperson said.
“There’s another cold front coming in from the Gulf of Alaska that will affect the temperatures, bringing in more rain with fairly substantial winds,” said Bob Benjamin of the NWS. “It’s a more formidable system.”
San Benito County can expect a few lingering showers beginning Wednesday afternoon because of another weak storm system from the Northwest. Some sun should break through by Thursday afternoon before the storm system lingering over the Pacific Ocean rolls in Friday night.
Recent storms moving across the coast ran into a high-pressure ridge, which Benjamin described as “a mountain of air” that kept heavy storms to the north.
“It began to weaken last Friday when the cold front came in, indicating the ridge was breaking down in the wake, giving it more energy for high winds to follow,” Benjamin said.
Temperatures are expected to be in the 60s during the day, dropping into the high 30s at night.
Local rainfall for the year is less than half the normal average, Benjamin said.
“As for precipitation, Hollister is 40 to 50 percent below normal,” he said. “Still, keep in mind we have a ways to go. It’s early in the rain year.”
As of this 4 p.m. Monday, the City of Hollister had recorded 2.62 inches of rain since the rainfall season began July 1. At Pinnacles National Monument the rain gauge has marked 2.80 inches.
Benjamin said San Jose is at 58 percent of its normal rainfall to date while San Francisco is at 44 percent. The trend around the Central Coast is averaging 50 percent normal, he said.
But December is historically one of the area’s wettest months.
“We still have a long ways to go before this rain year is over,” Benjamin said.
