2009

Only a quick update tonight to keep that promise I made yesterday…

Looks like the first storm is still on track to move slowly inland on Thursday, bringing with it a band of warm rain (with an almost subtropical appearance) on the eastern side. Snow levels will be extremely high, and relatively little precipitation will fall in the Sierras. Locally heavy rainfall may be possible on the Central Coast and the Transverse Range of SoCal, but I am suspicious that the models really may be overestimating the precip potential with this first system. One caveat: some isolated thundestorms may develop within the frontal band, and these could train over a relatively narrow area as the rain band is not expected to exhibit much easterly progress, at least initially. After this initial warm system, a much colder low will drop down just off the coast, keeping unstable air over the region and generating more convective showers and likely at least isolated thundestorms across the state. Rainfall with this second system is expected to be less significant than the first in the wettest areas, though parts of NorCal may see more (even though this still means a rather measly 0.5 inches or less). After that, it does appear that we will begin to dry out once again, although it is looking increasingly likely that we will be entering a cold and fairly dry pattern as opposed to the very warm and extremely dry pattern experienced as of late. Even so, this certainly isn’t going to help significantly with the drought situation in NorCal…