The early orange of sunrise Tuesday also brought with it fish scales in the sky — small-cloud formations bunched close together that look just like scales on a fish.
They typically mean rain is coming, and indeed it is. They don’t always mean a lot of it is coming, either.
“A tenth of an inch, maybe a couple tenths,” National Weather Service forecaster Steve Anderson said of the rain that these clouds portend. “Just a sprinkling.”
It won’t happen right away. Anderson said rain isn’t expected to start falling until 5 a.m. Wednesday morning. All nine Bay Area counties are expected to get wet, but none will get blasted, either, he said. Light sprinkles and showers are expected to fall until early in the afternoon.
“Then we’ll be drying out and warming up,” Anderson said.
The anticipation of rain is as high as it can be for a state that awaits the promise of a wet El Nio winter after four years of drought. But just because the water in the Pacific Ocean is warmer doesn’t mean the precipitation leading up to the one-time rainy season will increase.
“Normally, we start seeing the effects of El Nio begin in December,” Anderson said. “Right now, it’s the typical weather pattern that we normally see this time of year. Pretty warm weather for most of the month and light showers here and there.”
Anderson said a cold front from the Gulf of Alaska moved down the coast and began to erode a high-pressure system that caused temperatures to rise last week. After expected dry days Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Anderson said another cold front near Alaska may descend to bring more light rain by Sunday,
Contact Rick Hurd at 925-945-4789 and follow him at Twitter.com/3rdERH.
