2 weeks Ago By CBS Bay Area
The Bay Area's windy, rainy conditions mixed with frigid air in a few high-elevation areas to produce a noticeable, if thin, blanket of snow over the past couple of days. As on-again, off-again rain showers pushed through the area Thursday and Friday, they combined with a cold front to drop snow on some of the region's highest peaks. While exact measurements aren't known, the 3,849-foot Mount Diablo in Contra Costa County was noticeably dusted, as was the 4,265-foot Mount Hamilton in Santa Clara County, along with portions of the Central Coast's Santa Lucia Mountain Range, where the highest point is the 5,857-foot Junipero Serra Peak.
Snow is seen at the top of Mount Diablo in Contra Costa County, March 14, 2025. Pat Tighe "It's rarer to see this in the early part of the rainy season. As we go into spring, it actually becomes a little more likely just because of the way the upper-level system allows certain storms to go through," said National Weather Service meteorologist Brayden Murdock.
Those late-season systems can draw down cold air and moisture from the Gulf of Alaska, as opposed to the systems that push atmospheric rivers up from the tropical Pacific and that tend to dominate the region's rainy season earlier in the year. Murdock said some models showed that up to 5 inches of snow could fall on the Santa Lucias and there were even some reports of wet, quickly melting snow in the Santa Cruz Mountains. People should use caution when traveling to the region's snowy environs, he said.
"We're not encouraging people to go up there to those individual mountains," Murdock said. After Friday, rain is again expected across the region late Sunday morning, while Tuesday will likely be clear and rain again will roll through Thursday. "We're not really done with our spring rains just yet, but we don't expect much in the way of flood risk or wind risk," he said.
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