“It’s not like we barely beat the records, either — we really shattered the records,” said Dylan Flynn, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Bay Area office.
This two-week run of warm temperatures caused Bay Area residents to flock to local beaches or travel to the Sierra for the chance to ski in shorts. However, the exceptionally hot and dry March spelled the end of the ski season for many Tahoe resorts, which have since closed.
A person waits to cross the street in the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland on Nov. 13, 2025. (Martin do Nascimento/KQED)
But for the resorts that remain open, it ain’t over yet. With rain and snow in the forecast this week, incoming cooler weather could give diehard skiers one last chance to hit fresh powder this spring.
“You can never count on winter to be done in the High Sierra,” said Carly Mangan, spokesperson for Vail Resorts in Tahoe.
Keep reading for what we know about this week’s weather change, and what anyone contemplating heading to the Sierra for one last ride should know.
What’s the weather forecast for the Bay Area this week?
Flynn said the Bay Area cooldown will begin Monday, with a first storm from the tropics that could bring a chance of “novelty drops” of rain across the region through Tuesday.
But the second storm, a cold system dipping down from the Pacific Northwest on Wednesday and Thursday, is the region’s “best chance for rain,” Flynn said.
The ski area at Homewood has closed due to poor snow conditions as viewed on April 14, 2021, in Homewood, California. (George Rose/Getty Images)
As much as a quarter inch of rain could fall across the Bay Area, which Flynn said is important owing to the fact that it’s been “one of the driest Marches on record, too.”
“In fact, in San Francisco, it’s the driest March in over 100 years,” he noted.
Flynn said most of the rain will be “focused south of the Golden Gate Bridge” across the Peninsula, the East Bay and the Central Coast. Read the full forecast from the NWS’s Bay Area office.
After this week’s rain, what can we expect in the Bay for early April?
The cooldown is only temporary, Flynn said. This weekend, as a new ridge of high pressure builds over the region, temperatures will spike back into the 80s in inland areas and into the 70s along the coast.
“Unfortunately, after the next three days, the sun comes back out, and it gets hot again,” Flynn said.
Flynn expects temperatures to continue to be warm into early next week, but said “there’s a lot of uncertainty” over what the weather will be like after Monday.
“What I can say is after this cool stretch, we go right back above normal temperatures,” Flynn said.
What kind of snow will Tahoe see this week?
By the end of Thursday, this week’s storms could drop as much as a foot or more of snow on the height of the Sierra Nevada, said Gigi Giralte, a meteorologist with the NWS’s Reno office.
The new snow is a big deal for the state’s dwindling snowpack, which as of Monday sat at a meager 18% of the April 1 average. But Giralte warned that the snow may have trouble sticking to the ground because of the recent warmth and lack of snow.
