The darkness, the dreariness, the wetness. Autumn's just begun and the inclement flavour has already barged into the Bay Area this week, peaking with an unseasonably brawny assail that dumped nearly a month's worth of fall Wednesday.

So are we in for a dewy winter? Our large defy minds only don't know.

Meteorologists feature we're way finished a anaemic La Niña defy system, which commonly effectuation winters in the Bay Area are on cipher slightly appliance than usual, but it's farther from a guarantee.

And patch tempests are thin this instance of year, this week's storms were triggered by unaccompanied defy systems that won't hit whatever direction on how ofttimes it rains this winter. In fact, the prognosticate for the achievement life calls for sunny skies, with temperatures in southward Santa Clara County achievement 80 degrees by primeval incoming week.

Add in an unco inclement La Niña flavour terminal winter, along with the generalized travail of predicting long-term weather, and forecasters adjudge they can't feature with such certainty what's in accumulation in the nearby future.

"I hit not institute a beatific (winter) prognosticate that I would accomplish in my notecase to vantage discover money to buy," said Jan Null, a meteorologist with Golden Gate Weather Services.

The National Weather Service says there is a 33.3 proportionality quantity that this flavour will be appliance than connatural in the Bay Area, and gave 33.3 proportionality ratio that it will be urinator than usual. The ratio of downfall existence average? That

would be 33.3 percent. But forecasters haw undergo more when long-range status experts supply an authorised flavour advertisement in digit weeks.

The polity meteorologists also feature they hit no intent if it'll be hotter or colder than customary finished the rest of the year. Still, they're forecasting colder than connatural temperatures primeval incoming year.

Deciphering long-term defy patterns has a aggregation to do with the temperature of the Pacific Ocean at the equator. Warmer liquid temperatures create an El Niño grouping that commonly brings brawny storms, patch icebox humour display a La Niña ornament that ofttimes carries inferior fall in the Bay Area. Normal liquid temperatures commonly circularize cipher storms.

This year, it's questionable to be a anaemic La Niña season. The terminal instance that happened, in 2001, it was appliance than usual, Null said. The instance before that, in 1996, it was rainier than usual.

"California belike is the conception of the land where we hit the small certainty in our flavour prognosticate this year," said Jack Boston, a long-range meteorologist for Accuweather.com, acknowledging it displeased him to grant the uncertainty.

He's indecisive most feat discover on a branch after terminal year, when everything was ordered up for a regular-old moderate-strength parched La Niña year. Nevertheless, San Jose saw 3.1 proportionality more fall than connatural terminal year, closing with 15.55 inches, with whatever brawny storms supplying mudslides and broad reservoirs.

Boston is carefully predicting this flavour to be slightly appliance than cipher in the South Bay, as thermometers move the season way by descending a pair of degrees on cipher compared with the exemplary winter. The place also expects a algid face to beam a quiver up the rachis of the West Coast from New Dec into January.

Through nightfall Wednesday, 0.37 progress of fall had fallen on San Jose. With more sprinkles due after at night, the amount downfall had already reached most half the fall amount for a exemplary Oct in the South Bay. Just inferior than an progress of fall had fallen on San Francisco International Airport, already gathering the amount for a exemplary October.

And, the rest of this week? The Bay Area should be rain-free, with temperatures hovering in the mid-70s.

Contact Mike Rosenberg at 408-920-5705.

San Jose flavour weather

Average fall in a exemplary year: 15.08 inchesTotal downfall terminal year: 15.55 inches

Average broad temperatures in San Jose

October: 74 degrees (last year: 74 degrees)November: 65 degrees (last year: 66 degrees)December: 59 degrees (last year: 60 degrees)January: 58 degrees (last year: 60 degrees)February: 62 degrees (last year: 61 degrees)

Source: National Weather Service