Bay Area weather: Rain forecasted for weekend; record cold hits Oakland

December is off to a chilly start, as more rain forecasted for the Bay Area this weekend.

The month has been off to a wintry start in the Bay Area, with a freeze warning issued for parts of Santa Clara early Saturday morning and rain forecasted for most of the region throughout the day.

A storm from the Pacific Northwest brought the first steady rain in three weeks on Thursday, as well as heavy snowfall to the Sierra Nevada.

In addition to Saturday’s scattered rain, more showers are forecast on Sunday in the Bay Area, along with 2 to 3 feet of snow for the Sierra.

The precipitation will be in the form of heavy snow along the Sierra Nevada where 2-3 feet of snow is likely by Sunday night,” according to the National Weather Service. “Meanwhile, some parts of the northern and central-southern California coast may receive between 1-3 inches of rain as the system taps in subtropical moisture from the Pacific.”

In San Jose, forecasters expect between a tenth and a quarter of an inch of rain on Saturday. Forecasters from the National Weather Service estimate similar rainfall levels for San Francisco, Oakland, and Fremont on Saturday.

A 49-year weather record was broken in Oakland on Friday, as temperatures dipped amid freeze warnings for the Bay Area.

The temperature in downtown Oakland reached a low of 36 degrees on Dec. 2, exceeding the previous record low of 38 degrees for the same date in 1973, according to the National Weather Service..

With an average temperature of 46 degrees, the first two days of the month marked the coldest start to December recorded since 1970, forecasters said.