Storms are over

The strong cold front has moved well inland now, after bringing several hours of moderate rains across much of northern California last night and southern California today.  After the front moved through the Bay Area early this morning, colder air moved in aloft.  At the same time, we had sun this morning, which quickly warmed the surface/ground.  This resulted in a big decrease in temperature with height - warmer air beneath much colder air - or instability.  This instability helped produce scattered brief, but heavy, rain showers and even a few lightning strikes across the area.  Now that the sun has gone down, we've lost the surface heating, and the pocket of cold air aloft is moving east, so the instability has decreased.  Thus, we will remain mostly dry tonight.  Officially, SFO has received 1.10" of rain this month, which already eclipses the average rainfall for October.  We won't see any more rain for a while though.  The computer models are showing sunnier and warmer weather building in this weekend and next week with highs in the 70s.