BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND TWITTER BACKGROUNDS

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Status quo

Looks like summer has begun for California in terms of the weather with slightly below normal temps this next week but morning marine layer at the coast burning off to a sunny afternoon. Temp range the next 7 days looks to be from 60-65 at the coast in SoCal, 55-60 in NorCal to 80-85 inland in NorCal and in SoCal to 90-100 in the deserts of SoCal. Typical late May weather. On the horizon we are looking at a significant warm-up by Memorial Day which may raise the temps up to above normal and we may see our first outbreak of 100F temps in the inland valleys of SoCal and in the mid and upper 90's in the Central Valley. We shall see however as that is still over 7 days away. Stay tuned.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Storm train arrives, all aboard!!!

Well the big storm that has been talked about the past few days is on it's way but yesterday we had the first in the series. So far this storm train has resulted in one confirmed EF1 tornado, one waterspout, a few Tornado warnings for the SF Bay area and several inches of rainfall. However, we are not done yet. The next in the series is even more powerful and this time California is set for a high wind event, possibly reaching cat 1 hurricane strength in the urban areas with cat 3 strength in the mountains for the highest gusts( 80MPH urban areas and 130MPH for the mountain tops). With several inches of rain forecast on already saturated soils, a flood watch has been issued thus here is the expected highlights from this storm for all of California.

1: High winds, to hurricane force for the gusts with sustained tropical storm force.

2: Copious amounts of rain on the order of 2-4" for the urban areas in 24 hours and 5-6"+ for the mountain tops

3: Thunderstorm potential, some of which will be severe( in particular, Southern California) with isolated tornadoes possible as well as damaging wind gusts.

4: High waves at the beaches, 20-25ft waves possible along the Northern California beaches from Pt Arena to Pigeon Pt.

I will have more later tonight with an update on the watches, warnings and advisories from the NWS. Stay safe and stay tuned!

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Graphic View Of Rainfall Over the Next Few Days!

Stormy pattern continues

Looks like the stormy weather continues for California and this time SoCal is getting in on the action. Looking at the latest forecast shows a significant series of storms heading towards California beginning tomorrow morning and lasting through at least Monday. In gauging the intensity of these storms, based on the scale that I use for West Coast storms I'd put this one at a category 4 which means that each individual storm will produce rainfall amounts of 2-3" and winds gusting to 40-50MPH in the urban areas. There are two distinct frontal passages that will occur, one tomorrow afternoon and the second, stronger front will be on Sunday. In between these two storms, waves of rain and wind will impact California, from the north gradually spreading to the south. Look for totals when all is said and done to be between 6-8" in the wettest locations to around 4" for the urban areas in Northern and Southern California( areas LA and north). I'll have much more on this weather pattern in the coming days as well as totals of which will be provided by RWS West Coast followers from all over CA. Stay tuned and stay safe!

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Expanding on the Incoming Rains to California & The Northwest!


When one looks at the above water vapor images one sees that there appears to be one system lined up after another off the west coast and these systems over the next 72 hours will be heading towards the Pacific Northwest and west coast. The first one will only produce light rainfall with the advancement of the cold front..however due to onshore flow it should keep the shower activity enhanced. The second system will approach the coast on Monday evening and this one looks to provide the region with a few inches of rain and then of course higher elevations would be snowfall. Totally over the next 3 days or 72 hours the region could pick up in California over 1-3 inches of liquid precipitation . As well as in the pacific NW ..some areas could pick up more then 2-4 inches of rain.

These systems as they move east will weaken somewhat and that is why the precipitation totals are lower as you head east.

More wet weather for NorCal

Rainy weather on its way for NorCal as a trough sets up shop across the PacNW. Look for rainfall starting tonight and lasting into tomorrow morning before things clear out again for a couple of days. Really tonight's rain is no big deal, look for 0.25" at the most for urban areas. It's the rainfall that is coming at the end of the week that looked like it could be quite a bit, at least according to the 18Z model runs of yesterday. We could see 1" for NorCal urban areas out of that storm with maybe up to 3" in the the hills. This will then be followed by another wet storm the beginning of next week but that's a little too far out to warrant any kind of attention from the models. Will keep you posted but the storms look to come back as rather than leaving as a lamb March looks to roar out like a Lion!

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Stormy night for the San Francisco Bay Area

A stormy night is expected tonight for the San Francisco area with widespread t-storms, strong winds to 40MPH and heavy rainfall amounting to about 1" in the urban areas and up to 3" for the hills in just an 18Hour period. Lightning detection this afternoon is really lit up with several notable strikes the past 3 hours. With the storm tapping into some tropical moisture, precipitation will be abundant after sunset tonight with several hours of steady heavy rain and strong winds before things wind down by dawn tomorrow. Temps overnight in the SF area will be in the mid and upper 40's and highs tomorrow will be in the low 60's. Have a safe night everyone.