Eight Inches of Rain By End of Next Week, Forecaster Says

Dead Umbrella Project

The first of many...

​One of the many pearls of wisdom gleaned from Peanuts comics that Bay Area natives can attest to: "No matter how hard you try, you can't build a rain man."

Those wishing to disregard this advice, however, will have plenty of raw materials on hand in the coming days. Diana Henderson, a National Weather Service forecaster, tells SF Weekly to expect howling winds and off-and-on rain leading to up to eight cumulative inches of precipitation by the end of next week. Or, to paraphrase King Louis XIV, Après aujourd'hui, le déluge.

Here's why it's going to be so damn wet and windy.

Henderson notes that a low-pressure system is blowing out of the Gulf of Alaska. And, as you'd expect of most things Alaskan, it's cold. "It also has little pulses around it," and those pulses are pulling warm, moist air from the southwest, over the Pacific. That's your rain for you.

Tomorrow's light rain during the commute should open up to a wet Saturday and Sunday accentuated by winds of up to 30 mph or more. Yes, umbrella-killing weather.

Is this weather pattern unusual? Yes. But not particularly.

"It's not abnormal for December, but it doesn't happen every December," notes Henderson. "Graduate papers aren't going to be written about it."

But whatever is written about it should probably be done indoors.

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