Major pattern change on the way

A quick update this evening. After a rather interesting weather day yesterday, today was much calmer if much warmer in many locations once the moisture and clouds cleared away. CA will see another two days of warm and dry weather before a major Pacific storm barrels into the state from the northwest. The latest GFS, ECMWF, and NAM model runs all agree that significant to locally heavy precipitation will fall, that wind will be locally gusty, and that there will be at least a slight chance of thunderstorms both with the passage of the cold front and in the post-frontal atmosphere behind it. This is looking like the earliest significant cold-frontal rain event for Central California than I can remember–and even far SoCal will probably get at least some light showers out of this (which is extremely rare for a Pacific cold front this early in the season). Stay tuned…and be aware for the potential for  unseasonably significant precipitation (and rather welcome and refreshingly cooler temps) over the next 3-6 days.