Some rain early this week, but mostly calm weather prevails

The weather in California has been rather stagnant over the past couple of weeks. Though there has been some precipitation, there have been no major storms and there are none on the horizon at the moment. Tule fog has been the rule in the Central Valley, a telltale sign of midwinter meteorological inactivity. There is a fairly weak cold front moving through NorCal today, though it has managed to develop a convective band right along the front with isolated thunderstorms. A colder but weak system will drop down from the Yukon Territories on Monday, bringing some showers and colder weather to much of the state. Still, precipitation amounts will be on the light side everywhere.

Much of next week will actually be rather nice, if on the cool side, once the Monday system moves through, with less Tule fog in the Valley. An new system may try to approach the coast by next weekend, but the models are  not especially enthusiastic about this one at the moment. It is not unusual to have a 2-3 week quiet period in mid-December or mid-January. As long as this does not persist through January and February, much of the state is still on track for an average to above average precipitation year. An El Nino-type wet pattern has yet to develop this year, but there is still ample time for this to occur during the next three months…

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