The Bay Area’s brief rendezvous with rain gave way again to all-too-typical fiery, dry conditions, as winds blowing toward the ocean whipped up and temperatures started to rise Monday.
The result: A red flag warning for dangerous fire conditions that loomed over the region and put a PG&E public safety power shutoff into motion.
“We had that rain in the North Bay over the weekend, and as that pushed through, it set up a weather pattern where the high pressure pushes out from Nevada, and the winds blow from that direction,” National Weather Service meteorologist Ryan Walbrun said. “It’s a pattern we usually see this time of year.”
The red flag warning went into effect at 11 p.m. Sunday and was scheduled to stay in place until 8 p.m. Monday, according the weather service. The East Bay hills and valleys and the North Bay Mountains may see steady winds of 10-20 mph with gusts exceeding 50 mph, but the strongest of the winds are expected to die down gradually after 10 a.m., forecasters said.
The off-shore wind likely will keep the rising temperatures warm through the overnight period and further dry vegetation fuel that may have been dampened but not overly saturated from Saturday’s rain. That system dropped about a half-inch in areas of the North Bay and six-tenths of an inch atop Mount Diablo. Only a bit of drizzle fell in the central, lower-elevation parts of the region, according to the weather service.
As a result, PG&E said a public safety power shutoff that is expected to affect as many as 7,100 people was expected to go into motion at 5 a.m. Monday. Areas of Solano and Napa counties were expected to lose power around 5 a.m., but Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and San Francisco counties were expected to have their electricity through the day.
The PSPS also will affect customers in Colusa, Glenn, Lake, Shasta, Tehama, Kern and Santa Barbara counties, as well as the Cortina Rancheria Tribe and the Grindstone Rancheria Tribe.
Forecasters said that as the high pressure builds over the next couple of days, so will the temperatures. The far inland area of the region and Santa Clara Valley likely will see the mercury reach at least 95 degrees by Tuesday. San Jose may get up into the 90s, while Oakland and other cities closer to the San Francisco Bay are expected to reach the mid-80s.
San Francisco is expected to reach 80 degrees by Tuesday, and Monterey is predicted to reach 72.
The heat-up will be brief; temperatures as much as 10 degrees cooler are forecast for Wednedsday.
“We’ll have a pretty hot and dry Tuesday, and then a cooldown at mid-week that won’t be that big a deal,” Walbrun said. “Then after that, we’re looking at probably another off-shore event starting again Thursday that could heat things back up.”