The Bay Area and Northern California awoke Wednesday to the arrival of a storm fueled by a strong atmospheric river and intensified by a so-called "bomb cyclone" off the Pacific Northwest coast.

The effects of the so-called bomb cyclone storm on Southern California will be less dramatic compared with the north, weather forecasters say.

A second bomb cyclone is forming over the Pacific Ocean on Thursday that will re-launch a strong atmospheric river into the San Francisco Bay Area on Friday, forecasters said. “A secondary surface cyclone is forecast to develop off the Northern California coast (Thursday).