After widespread rain across California over the past week — resulting in at least one death — weather officials are expecting a reprieve this Thanksgiving.

An atmospheric river storm dumped record rainfall in Northern California this week, before weakening as it moved down the coast into Southern California. Weather officials say light rain is expected across the region starting Monday and continuing through Tuesday.

“Our biggest concern this week is people traveling for Thanksgiving,” said Dylan Flynn, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. “If you go Wednesday, you’ll have a better chance of staying dry.”

Another system rolling out Monday – aimed more at the Central Coast region – could bring perhaps 1 to 3 inches of rain, Flynn said. This would essentially be equivalent to the amount of rain the region experienced over a six-hour period as the atmospheric river now falls over a two-day period.

“Spreading that out will make the impact much less,” Flynn said. “Overall, this is a more typical winter event than what we just experienced.”

On Thanksgiving Day and Wednesday, Flynn said, “it looks like we’re going to dry up.”

Flynn called the system’s impact on Northern California this week “unprecedented,” citing a record amount of precipitation in Santa Rosa, with 12.47 inches falling over three days. Flynn said officials have never seen so much over such a long period of time, dating back more than 120 years.

“Statistical analysis shows that this amount of rain in downtown Santa Rosa should really only occur once every thousand years,” he said. “It was extremely unprecedented, we’ve never seen it before, we don’t expect to see it very often at all.”

Flynn said the atmospheric river sat still for a few days, over North Bay – with moderate rain for 48 hours straight – before starting to move and impact the rest of the Bay region. bay. When the system finally began moving south, it caused a flash flood warning in San Francisco, which Flynn called “pretty rare.”

Weather officials also noted the first flooding of the Russian River near Guerneville. This area typically floods in late winter, usually in February, according to Flynn.

Authorities saw at least one driver found dead in a car found in floodwaters. According to the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, around 11:30 a.m. Saturday, a passerby called to report a vehicle in floodwaters near Mays Canyon Road and Highway 116. Authorities were able to recover the man from the car, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.

According to Flynn, all major rivers are now below flood stage, with only a few streams still in flood.

“The big story is what happened last week and I’m just getting over it,” he said.

In the Los Angeles area Saturday, precipitation totals were mostly less than a tenth of an inch, with some mountainous areas reaching about a quarter of an inch, according to Mike Wofford, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

Wofford said the next chance of rain in the Los Angeles and Ventura areas is most likely Monday night into Tuesday, with generally less than a half-inch expected. Temperatures are expected to range from the low to low 60s, with mostly cloudy skies.

“A little bit of light rain at times, but for us it will be – it’s not normal since most of us just expect it to be sunny and 72 hours a day – it will be different of that, but without having as much impact,’” says Wofford. As it gets closer to Long Beach and Orange County, the rain lessens, with probably less than a quarter of an inch expected, he said.

The rain should stop after Tuesday and could resume next weekend.