After one day of calm, a second storm is set to hit the Bay Area today, bringing with it chilly nighttime temperatures and up to three-quarters of an inch of rain in some cities.

This storm is expected to be lighter than Tuesday’s torrential rains and follows precipitation that’s been falling since last Friday. Wednesday largely saw a break in the rain with “only a few light showers,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Matt Mehle early Wednesday.

Wednesday night and early this morning were expected to be very cold despite the sunny afternoon Wednesday, said National Weather Service meteorologist Brayden Murdock. Showers were expected to begin in the Bay Area around 4 a.m., though they could start earlier in portions of the North Bay.

“As we go through (today), right around the afternoon is where it really starts to intensify,” Murdock said. “But luckily, this is still kind of looking like more moderate rainfall amounts for a good portion of the area.”

Murdock added that the area expected to be hit hardest by the rainfall will be the Big Sur coast, which is predicted to get 2 inches of rainfall in a six-hour span.

The North Bay can also expect more intense rainfall tonight, with on-and-off showers.

Cities around the Bay Area can expect moderate rainfall through today and Friday, Murdock said. San Jose is predicted to see between a quarter of an inch and four-tenths of an inch of precipitation.

“Unfortunately, they’re going to get rain shadowed quite a bit by this one,” Murdock said.

Oakland, San Francisco and Concord will receive between half an inch and three-quarters of an inch, he added.

Temperatures across the Bay Area will dip into the 50s and 60s at night, Murdock said, adding that temperatures Wednesday night into this morning could reach into the 30s as one weather system moved out and another moved in. The rain through tonight will help act as an insulator, keeping temperatures a bit higher.

After the rain ends Friday, temperatures could dip into the 20s in some areas over the weekend and into next week as the weather system brings cold air in its wake, Murdock said. The coldest temperatures will likely occur around sunrise, he added, and the cold temperatures will be complemented by sunny skies.

Tuesday’s blast of rain — the most intense since November — set a new record in San Francisco. That city received 2.53 inches of rain before 5 p.m., breaking the daily mark of 2.2 set in 1887. San Francisco Airport also received 1.5 inches. breaking by two-tenths of an inch its previous mark for the day.

At 6 a.m. Wednesday, the 24-hour rainfall totals showed 2.4 inches in San Rafael; 2.3 inches in La Honda; 2 inches in Richmond, 1.1 inches in downtown Oakland and 1.1 inches in San Jose.

In the North Bay, the rains forced evacuations along the Russian River in Guerneville because of flooding.

The storm also brought with it severe winds — gusts exceeded 35-40 mph in the lower elevations and 65 mph in some of the higher ones, the weather service said — and thunderstorms. Mehle said the weather service recorded multiple lightning strikes on Mount Umunhum and Loma Prieta in Santa Cruz County.

PG&E was working Wednesday morning to restore power to about 4,400 customers throughout the region. Of those, 2,330 were in the Peninsula and about 240 were in the East Bay and South Bay. About 1,185 customers had lost power in the North Bay.

The next storm is not expected to bring with it those additional concerns for the Bay Area. It will arrive with a bit less moisture gathered and a weather front that’s colder than the one that just moved through. Temperatures won’t rise out of the mid-50s.

“This is pretty much just going to be standard rain,” Mehle said.

Still, that system will create more weather havoc for the Sierra Nevada. Weather forecasters said they anticipate 1-3 inches of snow in the Tahoe Basin and issued a winter storm watch.

Officials said people should not try to travel through the mountains until it passes.