These damaging winds are likely all the way through about 9 00 in the northern portion of our bay area. But throughout the entire region, today alone. In addition we have a Flash Flood Watch in effect today. Well see flooding on roads and ponding on sidewalks. We have a High Surf Advisory throughout the entire coast of the state of california. Some swells in excess of 35 feet. Trying to break this down, give it an hour leeway here or there from the north bay the heaviest rain and the gustiest winds happening now all the way until about 9 00 this morning. Then that front gradually spreads into the central portion of our bay area. Until noontime you will see heaviest rainfall there. It goes to the Santa Clara Valley 1 to 3 p. M. And moderate rain throughout the evening commute. As far as the impact, it is extremely high as far as our flooding is concerned. The wind will cause damage and the commute will be aversely affected. Futurecast is trying to roll this front through quickly. It shows it into the San Francisco area by about 8 a. M. Im saying more likely about 9 00 to about noon well be aversely affected but when you see these shades of purple thats rainfall one inch per hour and thats a lot of rain occurring in a short amount of time. Thats why the driving conditions will be hazardous. On the back side of the front theres subtropical moisture. Well be in and out of showers. Sometimes like right there in the Mount Hamilton area, well have heavy downpours. Keep that in mind. Also with some of these cells we have a chance of an isolated thunderstorm. See that wrap around moisture . Thats your friday. Scattered showers as well before we dry out saturday. The winds seem to be the most averse in the city of San Francisco thats your morning commute and again around the bay bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge you will see wind gusts in excess of 50 miles per hour. 35mileperhour gusts throughout the trivalley. The winds die down through friday. They will be about 10 to 20 miles an hour out of the southwest. Today with the winds temperatures into the 60s. The extended forecast calls for 8 of rain today in the highest locations. Generally a broad brush across the urban area, easily two to four inches of rain here in the bay area. Friday the lingering showers. Saturday will be dry. Cloudy sunday. Then we introduce rain showers albeit light showers in the forecast on monday through wednesday. Michelle and frank . Not of the 8 variety we hope. The storm has already dumped several inches of rain in the north bay. Anne makovec joins us live from novato with what you need to know before you head out that door k. Reporter i am getting wet. Im at a Shopping Center along roland way here in novato. The rain you can see is falling. There is some pooling and ponding going on here in this parking lot though nothing severe at this point. We are in front of an ihop restaurant thats set to open at 6 00 the so for the workers who are headed out right now, not too bad. You can see highway 101 there in the distance not a lot of traffic right now, not too many pools in the roadway when it comes to the highway. But the Emergency Operations center here in novato is open. It was activated at midnight and they are working on prioritizing any calls for help that might come in from now until the time the storm is finished. Its the strong winds expected here in the north bay later on this morning that are expected to cause some of the problems when it comes to downed trees and downed power lines. Well be keeping an eye on it for you. Live in novato, anne makevoc, kpix 5. The heavy rains expected to cause flooding on two rivers up in the north bay. The Russian River at guerneville was at 6 feet before the rain started. It could rise above 37 feet by tomorrow afternoon. The napa river is also expected above flood stage. That will happen early tomorrow morning. Crews worked hard stacking sandbags in east palo alto. They are hoping to keep San Francisquito creek from flooding nearby streets and homes. And they have built a wall of sandbags along the creek. This kind of weather causes major travel delays and, of course, that includes airplanes. Yes indeed. We have the very latest on that from kpix 5s kiet do. He is at sfo with more. Kiet, good morning. Reporter good morning. A steady mist has begun falling here at sfo. That means the rain is coming. You can see not too many people showing up here at the airport yet. According to the duty manager as of midnight 142 flights are canceled including arriving and departures. They say once these flights start taking off in the in the 6 00 hour that number could go up. If you are taking off this morning, call ahead to check the flight status because the rain is coming and significant delays could happen, as well. The Flight Cancellations are up to the individual airlines themselves. If it gets really bad here then the faa can institute a ground delay to give the airplanes more time to take off and land. Back here live, i want to show you a life picture of some restaurant workers that are striking up to 1,000 will be here throughout the morning and for the next 48 hours in fact. This is significant because 80 of the restaurants at sfo will be shut down and so they are advising you if you are coming to the airport, bring your own food. If you are stuck here, well, the timing of this couldnt be worse given all the Flight Cancellations that they are expecting later on today. Were live at sfo, kiet do, kpix 5. Bring a snack. Okay, thank you, kiet. Great highway closed between highway 35 and sloat boulevard. High winds are blowing sand on the highway. It happens all the time during big storms. So if you are heading that way, take caution. Lets check in with elizabeth now for a look at the roads. Its really still the high winds that are probably the biggest danger right now. This is not the morning you want to be a big rig driver or driving any kind of high profile vehicles. We have wind advisories on all the bridges and it was a tree that toppled onto a big rig earlier this morning. Eastbound 80 at pinole valley road still three lanes blocked. It was a huge eucalyptus tree that landed on the freeway. They are hoping to get this cleared by 5 15. But its a big tree. They did clear the truck out of the roadway and we are seeing delays countercommute. So fortunately, this didnt happen in the commute direction. Just some minor slowing right now approaching the scene. And westbound 80 looks okay at this hour. All right. Heres a live look at a very wet Golden Gate Bridge. You can see the hidef doppler at the bottom of screen. Its the wettest still in marin county. We are getting a few different flooding reports and a couple of accidents. There are some flooding reports on 128 in geyserville so just a heads up there. Also, if you are traveling in santa rosa now, northbound 101 is our first accident that we have seen since we have been on the air northbound 101 at steel lane. Sounds like its blocking ainlalanne. We are not seeing major delays in either direction. Check out the observations camera. Its jerking back and forth. Thats the winds moving the camera around. You will really notice the high winds if you are about to head off on your morning commute. Northbound 880 the drive too many looks okay but with strong winds give yourself some extra time. Keep plenty of distance between the car in front of you. If you are driving on the bay bridge this morning the winds are really gusty. Sometimes they issue these wind advisories and its okay. This morning hang on tight to your steering wheel. You will notice a difference. San mateo bridge you can actually caltrains issue that high wind advisory on the screen, thats the glow on the right side. Westbound 92 looks okay as far as the drive time 13 minutes or so between 880 and highway 101. And through the altamont pass, another wind advisory, chp just went through and issued them all where they knew that it was going to be the gustiest. Livermore valley commute though looks okay lighter than normal on our sensors in fact all green so far at 4 39. Mass transit use it if you can. So far everything is on time. Now, bart is up and running systemwide no delays. Ace train caltrain everything quiet. Off to a great start. Thats your latest kcbs traffic. Back to you guys. All right. Thank you, elizabeth. Daly city leaders are telling driverses to avoid parking on streets that typically flood. There were no cars on 88th street by Westlake Park last night. There are plenty of signs warning about flood danger. The area flooded during last weeks storm. And pg e crews are working to restore power to thousands of customers all over the bay area this morning. Even before the storm, they were at work trimming trees to prevent those outages. Extra crews were on the job and will be all day. Pg e is warning people to be careful around power lines. If customers see trees in contact with lines if they are concerned and most importantly if they see a line down please assume that that line is energized, call 911. And there have already been a number of scattered Power Outages all over the bay area this morning. The storm has caused those Power Outages for thousands of people across the bay. The biggest outages are in daly city, el cerrito and santa rosa. There are nearly 2200 people without power in daly city. And the kpix 5 weather app will help get you through all of this. You can check conditions in your area, get realtime radar, as well. Just search kpix in the app store or google play time now is 4 40. Its already wet out. Its only going to get worse. This is a live look from our roof cam out at the bay bridge. Were all over the bay area this morning. We have an updated list of School Closures on our website, kpix. Com. And well let you know whats happening on the roads, as well. Just stay with kpix 5 morning news for continuing storm coverage. ,, over a million californians have a gotten something thats beend. Out of reach for far too long. Health insurance. How . They enrolled through covered california. Its the Health Insurance marketplace where youll find a range of plans from leading Health Insurance companies that offer you the best combination of quality, rates and benefits. You can compare plans side by side, choose the one that best fits your needs and enroll online. Coveredca. Com is also the place to find Certified Experts in your area who can answer your questions for free, and help you enroll. And, through covered california, you may get financial help to pay for coverage. Its based on income, and 4 out of 5 people who have enrolled qualified. If you dont have a health plan, or you do, but you want to make sure its the best plan for you, nows the time to visit coveredca. Com. But to get covered, you gotta get going. To have Health Insurance starting january 1st, you need to enroll by december 15th. Visit coveredca. Com today. Like many bay area cities. S been preparing for this stoa lot of work has been done ie San Francisco like many bay area cities has been preparing for this storm. A lot of work has been done to keep this part of the Mission District from turning into a lake. The area was built on a lagoon and mission creek, so when it rains, water flows downhill and pools here. That neighborhood has flooded five times in four years damaging homes, businesses and a number of cars. Yesterday, workers were busy putting up floodgates and plugged up drains that are notorious for flooding. And many residents plan to park in other neighborhoods during the storm for the next couple of days. Head you up to the sierra now. This storm system expected to dump as much as 3 feet of snow there. Drivers headed up to the mountains are warned they could face whiteout conditions. Carry your chains. Caltrans has salt trucks and plows on standby on 80 and 50. Reno is bracing for 70mileper hour wind gusts and if you are going to be up at lake tahoe stay out of the water. Waves could reach as high as 7 feet. So it is nasty up in the sierra. Im just giggling because michelle is going, oh oh just sighing. Deep breath. I looked at the clock and its 4 45 and i still have another 12 hours to go at least. Right . We just cannot talk enough about this powerful pacific storm heading into the bay area because its already making a huge impact throughout not just not the bay but throughout the entire area. Lets go ahead and call on our hidef doppler radar. Rain is causing a dip in the northern portion of the bay area. Green is light rain, yellow the moderate rainfall. Orange is the heavy downpour. No purple now. Thats good. Purple is not a good thing at all. That signifies an inch of rain an hour. Right now moderate rain at highway 1 and 101 around the northern portion of the bay area. Im traversing to the east bay because we are seeing light rain showers around the walnut creek area and hercules but for the most part all of this is a north bay event. Muir beach moderate rainfall but upstream in bolinas we have pretty heavy rain at this time. And then you couple that up with some very gusty winds. This is the big picture. This is a big storm. Look at the comma right there. Thats the core that still has to bang up against the northwestern section of the state of california. This plume of moisture is tapping into subtropical moisture all the way back to the hawaiian islands. So thats why we call it the pineapple express. And thats why were getting a whole lot of rain on top of some very mild temperatures at this hour. We are in the 60s except for santa rosa in the upper 50s but the other part of this story is what elizabeth has been alluding to all morning long. The very gusty winds especially for your commute over the local bridges. Check out right now novato at 15. These are sustained winds not even gusts. Oakland with winds up to 31 miles per hour. 26 in san jose with gusts up to 35. Meanwhile in napa we have a southsoutheast wind at 20 clocking in at 32 now in san rafael, 34mileperhour winds in berkeley and this is why we have a high wind advisory in effect for today. Damaging winds are likely. Well see downed trees. And we will see downed power lines. Flash flood watch in effect for the entire bay area today. We already have saturated soil from last weeks storm. Now were talking about 8 of rain at the coast and the northern mountains of the north bay. All beaches do have a High Surf Advisory in place. All local beaches. In fact, just about the entire state of california up and down the coastline. So im trying to break it down for you. Right now, we have the heaviest rain and the gustiest winds occurring in the northern portion of the bay area, then this front slides into the central bay. Well start seeing the heaviest rainfall around the city of San Francisco and oakland around 9 00. Give it an hour or two but for the most part this gives you a time frame through 1 00 p. M. And then the front sags to the south, the peninsula and the Santa Clara Valley will be impacted by this storm between 1 and 3. And im saying thats the front. On the back side we have moderate to light rainfall. So the storm impact will be greatly affected with flooding, wind and your commute will be adversely affected. I think our futurecast is running a little fast here. Thats the heaviest rainfall. Thats the front. I think it wants to take it out too fast from the central bay to the Santa Clara Valley. Once the front passes, on the back side of it we have moderate rain. Then pockets of heavy rain, as well. Were not all clear. Its just the heaviest rain and the gustiest winds will be out of here. Then were in and out of the showers throughout tonight. There go a couple of heavy cells, as well. On the back side of this, do you notice the circular rotation . Thats that core i was alluding to. Thats traversing out of the area and so we have scattered showers for your friday. Before we begin to dry out on saturday. Now, meanwhile, our temperatures today in the 60s. Unseasonably mild for this time of the year. Winds die down this afternoon, westsouthwest breezy 10 to 20 miles per hour. Scattered showers on friday. 2 to 4 of rain today alone in throughout the urban areas, 8 in the high country. Dry skies over the weekend. But then we bump up the cloud cover on sunday and that will lead to more rain showers. Im saying showers, elizabeth, monday, tuesday and wednesday. Its going to feel good after all this rain. So now we have flooding in our notorious flooding spot at lucky drive in marin county. Every time it rains even a lot less than this, it tends to flood. So right now the northbound lanes we just got word from chp, theres about 6 of standing water right now in all of the northbound lanes. Again, this is approaching lucky drive. We havent heard anything about southbound it looks like thats okay. But, of course, things can change. Just be extra careful as you drive through the area. Heres a live look at the Golden Gate Bridge. It looks okay right now. Only one lonely car right now heading into San Francisco. The roads are slick. But overall across the span it looks okay. There were flooding reports earlier as well along parts of 128 in geyserville. There were a couple of flooding reports. And also, this fallen tree is still there in pinole valley road. Eastbound, still causing a delay in fact we just got off the phone with chp on this one. They have to temporarily block all lanes right now approaching pinole valley road so they are diverting traffic but they hope to get this open here very shortly. It was a large eucalyptus tree completely belonged the roadway there for a blocked the roadway there for a while, landed on a big rig. It was a big old mess. They are hoping to reopen la inches shortly but are now diverting traffic to get the debris off the ground. Wow, it is really those high winds thats causing the Biggest Issue right now. I mentioned high high wind advisories all over the bay area. This is in oakland northbound traffic, you can see its quiet nice and light 15 minutes between 238 and the maze. Wow, give yourself some extra time and plenty of space especially in a highprofile