An atmospheric river is hitting Northern California, bringing a series of rainy days with storm impacts through the weekend.
The atmospheric river will bring heavy rain, flood risks and strong winds to the region, with the North Bay taking the brunt of the impacts.
TIMELINE: Here's what to expect as atmospheric river hits Bay Area
The focus of flooding will be on smaller streams, creeks and roads in the North Bay. Our rivers will be able to handle this first storm of the season and are not expected to flood.
Strong wind will bring trees down and isolated power outages across the Bay Area.
While wind and rain pound the Bay Area, heavy snow and strong wind gusts will make travel in the Sierra extremely difficult.
LIVE: Track rain in San Francisco Bay Area with Live Doppler 7
The National Weather Service issued a Flash Flood Warning for parts of the East Bay on Friday.
The warning is issued until 6 p.m. and affects the areas in and surrounding Oakland, Alameda, Piedmont, Berkeley, El Cerrito, Richmond, San Pablo and Pinole.
Residents are advised to move to higher ground and avoid driving through flooded areas.
San Francisco CHP says to expect delays as flooding impacts parts of I-280 near John Daly Boulevard on Friday.
Due to the flooding, the freeway's #4 and #5 lanes are blocked, with no estimated time of reopening. Drivers are advised to to use alternative routes.
The National Weather Service issued a Flash Flood Warning in San Francisco until 3:45 p.m. on Friday.
Those in the area are advised not to attempt to travel unless fleeing an area subject to flooding or under an evacuation order.
The Thanksgiving holiday travel rush is already well underway with about 1.2 million people expected to fly every day over the next week.
But this weather is already causing serious delays for people trying to get a head start on their Thanksgiving holiday.
According to FlightAware, as of 11:30 a.m. Friday there were already nearly 340 delays and nearly 50 cancellations at SFO.
Satnam and Jaz Baines from Union City are getting out of dodge with a pre-Thanksgiving trip to Cabo.
"I think that we're getting away at the right time," Jaz Baines said. "And yeah my brother and sister-in-law's anniversary, 50th anniversary, it's going to be fun. Bringing the family together, we're excited and looking forward to it."
But other travelers weren't so lucky, hundreds of flights have been delayed, all before noon, because of reduced visibility, the onset of rain and gusty winds.
Although peak traffic is not expected until Sunday, airport officials are still expecting around 160,000 people in and out of SFO Friday alone.
"The strength of the winds and also the direction that they're coming from has caused us to reconfigure how we're using our airport," SFO spokesperson Doug Yakel said. "So we're taking off and landing in kind of a different configuration than we normally see and that's really contributing to the delays and cancellations that we're seeing today."
Typically, flights will take off in the direction of either Oakland or Pacifica but on Friday they've taken a 180.
"In other words, our flights are taking off towards the San Mateo Bridge and they're landing coming from Oakland," Yakel said. "This is what we call a southeast plan because of that unusual direction of the winds associated with this storm."
Because of reduced visibility, SFO is also increasing the separation between planes on the runway for safety reasons.
No matter what time the flight, the best advice the Baines family had for fellow travelers is to give yourself more time to get to the airport during these conditions.
"The earlier the better right, earlier the better," Jaz Baines said.
New federal regulations mandate airlines to issue automatic refunds for all domestic flights delayed more than three hours and all international flights delayed more than six hours.
