Watch Live Coverage: Today’s strong storm is Level 3 as Bay Area deals with flooding and damage

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Thursday’s storm is ranking a strong level 3 on the exclusive ABC7 Storm Impact Scale. This is compared to the level 5 storm on Wednesday, the first level 5 in the history of the scale.

The entire region remains under a Flood Watch, and winds will continue to be an issue until 10 a.m. Thursday.

Meteorologist Drew Tuma says everything is saturated right now, so it won’t take a lot of rain to create issues.

The flood threat is extremely high especially in the afternoon and evening on Wednesday. Strong winds gusting 40-60 mph will also cause a lot of trees to come down.

The National Weather Service said Monday that this upcoming storm will likely be “the most impactful system on a widespread scale that this meteorologist has seen in a long time.”

NWS officials say not only will this storm bring flooding, power outages and “disruption to commerce,” it will also most likely cause loss of human life. They say this system will be brutal and needs to be taken seriously.

While rainfall totals in many cities may not be as high as New Year’s Eve storm (SF saw 5.44″) the forecast of 1″-3″+ Wednesday will be high impact since we have had no break in between storms.

Details of the storm:

Round 1 of heavy rain will occur between 5 a.m. – 10 a.m. Wednesday.

It is possible we see a lull in activity between 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. A lull was also forecast in the New Year’s Eve storm but that did not occur and that is something we need to monitor in real time Wednesday.

Round 2 will be the worst. Between 2 p.m. – 9 p.m., our atmospheric river slowly crawls over us with heavy rain. This is when the flood threat will be highest.

Between 2 p.m. – 9 p.m. Wednesday this is when winds will gust 50-60mph+. Water logged trees will easily come down and we do expect power outages.

Worst rain and wind forecast to move out between 10 p.m. Wednesday – 1 a.m. Thursday.

Mud/land/rockslides will happen. Streams and creeks will flood. River flooding is also possible.

Areas we are watching for flooding:

  • Russian River at Guerneville & Geyserville
  • Mark West Creek at Mirabel Heights
  • Maacama Creek near Kellogg
  • Laguna de Santa Rosa at Stony Point Rd near Cotati

  • Alameda Creek near Niles
  • Alameda Creek above Div Dam near Sunol
  • Arroyo de La Laguna at Verona

  • Potentially portions of San Francisquito Creek
  • Coyote Creek above Hwy 237 at Milpitas
  • Pacheco Creek near Dunneville

If you’re on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live

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