A woman walks along Lake Merritt during a rainfall in Oakland, Calif. on Nov. 9, 2021.
A weak weather system is forecast to bring light rain to the San Francisco Bay Area Thursday night into Friday morning, with the highest chances for precipitation in San Francisco and northward, the National Weather Service said.
"It's not going to be a huge rainmaker by any stretch of the imagination, but I can't say it's going to be completely dry," weather service meteorologist Roger Gass said.
The North Bay will measure the most rain with up to a tenth of an inch expected in valley areas. San Francisco could see a couple hundredths of an inch. Trace amounts are forecast in the East Bay and South Bay.
A mass of cold air is pushing into the Bay Area ahead of the rain and temperatures Wednesday morning were generally about 10 degrees colder than there were Tuesday morning. Chilly temperatures will continue into Thursday when afternoon highs are forecast to be in the upper 50s to lower 60s across the region.
Conditions will dry up Friday afternoon and continue through the weekend and into next week.
"It looks like the majority of the rest of the month will be mostly dry," Gass said. "There's some indication of a weather system dropping in late the following week so closer to Thanksgiving, but I wouldn't say it's going to rain Thanksgiving by an stretch. The potential for dry weather through the remainder of the month is looking high."
The dry trend is bad news for a region that's starved for water amid a statewide drought. The region saw a powerful atmospheric river in October and a weaker, but still wet storm in November that brought beneficial rainfall and marked a promising start to the rain season. But while the storms put an end to the wildfire season, they barely put a dent in the drought.