Rain storm coming to Fresno. Here’s latest, including forecast for Bulldogs football game

For those setting weekend plans, cooler weather — and rain — is expected in Fresno.

Conditions should be pleasant on Friday, but Saturday will be a “big transition day, as a piece of energy drops into the region from the Gulf of Alaska,” the National Weather Service said in its daily forecast discussion.

Temperatures will drop 10 to 15 degrees, according to the weather service, and there will likely be thunder and rain — as much as a quarter of an inch in Fresno. Strong wind gusts are expected in Kern County and snow will fall in the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada, above 8,000 feet.

Tioga Pass in Yosemite National Park could see four to seven inches of snow.

On the central San Joaquin Valley floor, the rain should pass by early evening Saturday, well in advance of Fresno State’s football game against Nevada. Kickoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in Fresno. “That doesn’t mean they won’t get a bit of lingering showers,” says Brian Ochs, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Hanford.

For the most part, the rain isn’t anything too unusual for this time of year and the impacts in Fresno will be minor and less than what the area experienced when Hurricane Hilary hit California in August. It won’t make major impact to the state’s rain totals for water year 2023, which also ends on Saturday.

It will be warm again next week.

High temperatures could reach 90 degrees or higher on Friday.