Latest Bay Area storm expected to include lightning, snow

"An onslaught of Bay Area rain that has no real end in sight over the next week was braced to increase in its fury on Tuesday while also being accompanied by two other elements not all that normal for this region. According to the National Weather Service, expect loud claps of thunder and many flashes of lightning throughout the region and pockets of snow in places not normally seen."

"The ridge that was blocking everything and keeping us dry has shifted, NWS meteorologist Dalton Behringer said Tuesday. Once it eroded out, you get the pattern chance, and you get a chance downstream of that (in the atmosphere). Once that happened, the door opened. And once you have a blocking ridge elsewhere, that can get you a really active pattern, because the systems head down the same path."

"By Tuesday morning, the weather service said the second of the systems already had brought trace amounts of snow in the Santa Lucia Range along the Central Coast and on Mount Hamilton in Santa Clara County. A winter weather advisory remained in place there Tuesday morning and remained in effect until 4 p.m. Wednesday. That same advisory went into effect in Santa Clara County at 6 a.m. and lasts until 4 p.m. Wednesday. Temperatures are expected to dip into the low 30s."

A persistent series of storms will keep precipitation over much of the Bay Area for the coming week. Thunder, frequent lightning, and pockets of snow are possible in locations that do not normally see snow. A shifting ridge and a pattern change allowed multiple systems to follow the same path, producing back-to-back storms that began last week with low pressure from the Gulf of Alaska. Trace snow already appeared in the Santa Lucia Range and on Mount Hamilton. Winter weather advisories are in effect, temperatures will dip into the low 30s, and snowfall is expected to increase Tuesday night into Wednesday.

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