NOAA forecast discussion yesterday afternoon:
The upper low will begin to move east on Friday and approach Point Conception on Friday evening. Moisture associated with the low will increase as flow becomes onshore. A band of light to locally moderate rain is expected to develop over the Central Coast late Friday and into Saturday morning. Have increased PoPs and QPF as a majority of ECMWF and GFS ensemble members depict this scenario. Exact placement and strength of the band is uncertain but overall rainfall amounts will be light, with the vast majority of rainfall confined to locations south of San Francisco Bay.
Saturday I found these interesting statistics offered by NOAA in my forecast discussion:
One such prominent location - downtown San Francisco - has observed rainfall records as far back as late 1849. In all that time, only one other year had no precipitation throughout all of its February -- 1864. Looking back at the 10 driest Februarys for downtown San Francisco as a proxy ( 1864 - 0.00, 1953 -- 0.04, 1899 -- 0.10, 1852 -- 0.14, 1964 -- 0.19, 2018 -- 0.21, 1967 -- 0.22, 1995 -- 0.24, 1866 -- 0.24, 1971 -- 0.26 ), we can see that a dry February does not necessarily mean a dry March. Of these 10 year, 3 of them had a "miracle" March with more than 200% of normal precipitation for the month -- 1899 had 7.61", 1852 had 6.68", and 1995 had 7.88". Furthermore, 5 of the 10 years had above average precipitation in March after a top 10 driest February. Currently, the long range models do look dry into early March, however, there is some support for a more progressive pattern as the month of March progresses, but it is too soon to say what kind of month March will be. Stay tuned