On the heels of a storm-tossed January, another atmospheric river is taking aim at Northern California, but there’s a chance it might miss the Bay Area, according to the National Weather Service.

The steady flow of moisture from the Pacific is expected to set up Tuesday morning above the North Bay and Northern Sierra Nevada; however, there’s a possibility it could shift south to the Santa Cruz Mountains, according to Steve Anderson, a forecaster with the weather service. Forecasters will have a better idea of its path in the coming days.

“It has characteristics of an atmospheric river, but it’s unknown right now where the full point of the heaviest rain will be,” Anderson said. “It may not be in the Bay Area at all.”

Unlike the cold fronts that sweep down from the northwest and roll through the Bay Area in a matter of hours, the warmer atmospheric rivers remain in place, Anderson said.

“This is like a fire hose pointed at you,” he added. “It’s not moving. It’s just pointed at you spraying heavy moisture.”

It’s not clear yet how much rain this atmospheric river will deliver, Anderson said, but it appears to be weaker than the ones in December and January that caused enough damage for Gov. Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency to speed up repairs.

The storm that made its way through the Bay Area to end the workweek delivered robust 48-hour rainfall totals in the North Bay, including Santa Rosa, which received 2.36 inches through 6:30 a.m. Friday. Rainfall totals for the same period were drastically less in other cities, including San Francisco .43 inches, San Jose .32, and Oakland .22.

The weekend should offer a brief respite with a period of dry weather from Saturday morning to Sunday evening. Another round of rain is expected to arrive after the Super Bowl and deliver 1 to 2 inches of rain over a period of three to six hours, said Ryan Walburn, a forecaster with the National Weather Service. Showers could linger into Monday.

“We all realize we had a wet January,” Walbrun said. “Usually things go in different directions and there’s a drying out. Right now, there’s no signal of that happening. This active storm pattern continues though the middle of the month.”

Rainfall totals throughout the Bay Area are all running above average for the season, which began on Oct. 1, including Santa Rosa, which has received a staggering 39.85 inches (186 percent of normal). Others include San Francisco at 18.95 inches (137 percent), Oakland at 16.40 inches (141 percent) and San Jose at 10.39 inches (122 percent).

The Sierra Nevada snowpack — the source of a third of the state’s drinking water — is 177 percent of the historic average, the biggest since it reached 207 percent on Feb. 1, 1995, according to state records. The weekend storm system could dump up to 3 more feet of snow.