LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The National Weather Service is forecasting that rain will arrive over five-ravaged Northern California this week, a development that fire officials said will help if enough rain falls.
In a video posted on Monday, meteorologist Eric Kurth of the National Weather Service’s Sacramento office said the first significant widespread wet weather of this fall season is in this week’s forecast.
The rain is expected to occur beginning on Thursday night and continuing through Friday, the forecast said.
“This is the start of our wet season,” he said, with up to an inch of rain – and possibly some snow – expected in Northern California’s mountains.
The forecast also calls for temperatures that are 10 to 15 degrees cooler than normal, the agency said.
Forecast models predict up to a quarter of an inch in Lake County when the rain starts to arrive on Thursday night and Friday.
Conditions are then forecast to clear through the weekend and into early next week.
Nighttime lows in Lake County this week should range down into the mid-30s in some areas, rising to the low 80s during daytime hours, based on the forecast.
As for how helpful the rain could be, during a Monday briefing on the Central LNU Complex burning in Napa and Sonoma counties, Cal Fire Operations Section Chief Steve Crawford said they are hoping to get at least a half an inch of moisture out of the rains.
He said of the rain reports, “That’s not always perfect for us.”
Storms sometimes end up bringing more wind – and sometimes erratic winds – than rain, which then creates more of a fire front, Crawford said.
If a lot of rain falls, it could become a matter of fire trucks getting stuck, but Crawford said they would deal with that possibility.
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Forecasters: Rain expected to arrive this week
- Elizabeth Larson
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