Storm shatters Bay Area rainfall records; region gets a break today

Sunny skies on Saturday morning gave Bay Area residents a break from the two days of heavy rains that pounded the region, breaking daily rainfall records in cities from Santa Rosa to San Jose.

“We still are going to have rain these next few days, but it’s nothing like what we went through,” said meteorologist Dylan Flynn, with the National Weather Service’s Monterey office.

Downtown Santa Rosa broke a century-plus record for having the wettest 72-hour period ever for any month— 12.7 inches. The Santa Rosa records go back to 1902, and the previous record was 9.72 inches, according to the NWS.

“We broke it by a healthy margin,” Flynn said. “We’ve never seen that much of rain over three days since we started recording.”

Downtown San Francisco registered 2.97 inches of rain Friday, a total that broke the city’s Nov. 22 record of 1.12 inches. The record was set more than 150 years ago, and the NWS began recording the city’s weather conditions in 1847.

In the South Bay, San Jose recorded 0.72 inches of rain, breaking a Nov. 22 record set in 1964 by 0.10 inches. San Jose’s weather records date back to 1929.

Despite the break in weather, the storm’s aftermath is causing disruptions in traffic and flood advisories.

This morning a fallen tree on Foothill Expressway in Los Altos slowed down traffic in both directions at the Loyola Bridge. In San Mateo, as section of Maple Street between Madison Avenue and Barneson Avenue is also closed to traffic due to a fallen tree. San Mateo police is asking drivers to avoid the area and use alternate routes. The time estimate for reopening is 3 pm.

In Orinda last night, a fallen tree blocked the roadway on Moraga Way and Glorietta Boulevard. Locals were told to use caution while driving and seek alternative routes while the city’s public works cleared the tree.

Excessive rainfall by the storm could cause flooding in urban areas and small stream in the East Bay. The National Weather Service issued moderate flood advisories for Alameda and Contra Costa that went into effect this morning afternoon and are effective until 1:45 p.m. today. Sonoma County also has a moderate flood advisory until 3:15 p.m. this afternoon.

For local airports, operations are returning to normal just in time before the start of the busy Thanksgiving travel season.

At the San Francisco International Airport, only 169 flights were delayed by this afternoon after 670 flights were delayed on Friday due to the weather. No delays were reported in Oakland, and only a couple of San Jose after both locations witnessing a combined total of nearly 100 delayed flights.