Six inches of snow expected in Idaho, September 2015 third most rainfall in Los Angeles since 1870s-SF Gate

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9/16/15, "Heat wave is just a memory--rain, snow coming to California," sfgate.com, Bill Hutchinson

"California is going from record heat to rain, cold--and even snow. After last week saw temperatures soar well past 100 degrees in some Bay Area communities, a dramatic cooling trend has descended on the region and throughout much of the West. 

Light rain is expected Wednesday in the Bay Area and the drought-parched areas of Lake County where the Valley Fire continues to burn. Snow could fall as low as 7,000 feet in the northern Sierra, forecasters said.

In other parts of the West, Idaho is expected to get as much as six inches of snow while Montana and Utah are forecast to get rain and a snow in the states’ mountainous areas.

The dramatic weather change comes a week after a heat wave swept through the Bay Area and most of California, driving temperatures to 95 degrees in San Francisco and up to 104 in Walnut Creek.

National Weather Service forecaster Bob Benjamin said San Francisco temperatures will be at least 30 degrees cooler than last week, with a high of 66 degrees on Wednesday. Rainfall could start later in the day and total up to a tenth of an inch.

Up north in Lake County, exhausted firefighters who have been battling the Valley Fire since Saturday are expected to get a good dousing of rain, perhaps as much as a quarter-inch to a half-inch over Wednesday and into Thursday.

Meanwhile, a late-summer storm in Southern California brought more than two inches of rain to downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday, making it the third-wettest September storm there since the 1870s, officials said. The storm also brought flooding and widespread power outages."


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