Marin rain eases ahead of incoming system

Neither rain nor cold nor sloppy turf could stay Doc Borchart from his appointed round Monday at Peacock Gap Golf Club.

Borchart, 78, of San Anselmo has a regular skins game on Mondays and Wednesdays at the San Rafael course, and despite the inclement weather, no one was backing down.

Borchart, who described himself as a 20 handicap, said he shot a 90 on the par-71 course, including a birdie on the par-4 No. 7. He said the rain was steady but not severe, and with few other players out there, the foursome finished in about three and a half hours.

“One way or the other, we have a good time,” he said.

The storm that arrived on Sunday night and persisted through much of Monday brought nearly 2 inches of rain to parts of the county, according to Joe Merchant, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Rainfall totals through 4 p.m. Monday included 1.9 inches on Mount Tamalpais, 1.64 in Woodacre, about an inch in Kentfield and San Rafael and nearly 0.90 inches in Novato, he said.

Merchant said top wind speeds included gusts of 47 mph on Big Rock Ridge, 46 mph on Wolfback Ridge and 43 mph on Mount Tamalpais. Speeds in the 20s to 30 mph were recorded at lower elevations.

The forecast is dry for Tuesday. The National Weather Service also expects favorable conditions for Borchart’s round on Wednesday.

However, by late Wednesday, another system is expected to arrive from the north and linger until early Friday, Merchant said.

“It’s just not going to be as strong,” he said.

A dry weekend is in store, with more rain possible at the beginning of next week.

“Unseasonably cool high temperatures in the upper 50s to low 60s are expected through the week,” the National Weather Service said in its forecast summary on Monday morning. The agency said high surf, potentially hazardous beach conditions and breaking waves of up to 20 feet could be in store along the coast on Thursday and Friday.

The recent series of storms has been fortifying the reservoir levels in Marin. The Marin Municipal Water District reported that just over 10 inches of rain had fallen at Lake Lagunitas from July 1 through Sunday, even before much of the latest rain. For the same period last year, the total was 2.52 inches. The historical average is 6.55 inches.

The district reported that its seven reservoirs — Alpine Lake, Bon Tempe Lake, Kent Lake, Lake Lagunitas, the Nicasio Reservoir, Phoenix Lake and the Soulajule reservoirs — had a combined 63,291 acre-feet of water on Sunday. That is nearly 80% of capacity and 123.30% of the historical average for the date, the district said. An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons of water.