More rain ahead for Sonoma County next week

Cold air and rainfall were expected to drop snow levels around California.|

Cold, wet conditions forecast to bring new snow to the Sierra were expected to dust high elevations around the North Bay Area overnight Thursday and make for dicey travel conditions in the Tahoe area, the National Weather Service said.

But none of the snow in the North Bay was expected to linger, and rain and snow showers were predicted to give way to sunshine by Saturday, though temperatures will remain cool, forecasters said.

The drippy weather of the past few days brought with it high surf along the Pacific, with waves on the Sonoma Coast peaking above 20 feet tall around midmorning Thursday, according to Damien Jones, supervising ranger with the Sonoma Coast State Park.

Waves reaching 23 feet high in advance of high tide around midmorning Thursday inundated six or seven beach-level campsites at Wright’s Beach Campground, a broad sandy beach and popular camping spot about halfway between Bodega Bay and Jenner.

“We moved about seven people out of the campground, and actually about four or five were leaving anyway,” Jones said.

The surf washed sand, logs and other debris into the campsites, though park personnel hoped to have the campground organized again by noon today, in time for weekend campers.

A high surf warning remains in effect through 4 p.m. today, with long lulls between wave sets raising the risk to beachgoers, the National Weather Service said. But the size of the waves was expected to continue to diminish - though Jones warned against lowering one’s guard at any time along the coast.

The recent period of high waves, which came in Wednesday night, was expected to provide some of the largest surf of the winter season, the weather service said.

The water came up high enough on Sonoma Coast beaches to diminish the area where visitors could go.

“There’s pretty much no beach, the surf is so high, and the waves,” Jones said.

Several days of wet weather have done little to raise the season’s rainfall levels. Santa Rosa, for instance, had received about 10.93 inches of rain so far this season, only 58 percent of normal, said Steve Anderson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

But new storms arriving Sunday night into Monday and Tuesday night into Wednesday were expected to bring more rain, though little of it was expected to get past the coastal mountains, Anderson said.

The Thursday night snow level was expected to drop to about 4,000 feet in the San Francisco Bay Area, Anderson said, allowing for possible snow flurries at Mount St. Helena and Cobb Mountain, but little else.

Eureka forecaster Ryan Aylward said snow in Mendocino County could fall at 2,500 feet Thursday night, with snow levels back up around 5,000 feet when the next precipitation arrives Sunday night.

In the Tahoe Area, snow and gusty winds were expected to make travel dangerous, accounting for a winter storm warning weather for the western Sierra in effect until 4 p.m. today.

Marvin Boyd, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service’s Reno office, said 4 to 7 inches of snow were expected below ?7,000 feet, with up to 10 inches accumulating along the west shore of Lake Tahoe, 10 to 18 inches above 7,000 feet and localized snowfall of 2 feet in some areas.?“We’re pretty far behind right now, as far as snowpack is concerned,” Boyd said, “but hopefully we’re in an active period of weather that stays active.”

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