2009

Yesterday saw dozens of record high temperature records shattered across the Bay Area and interior part of NorCal. Some places exceeded their old daily records by nearly 20 degrees–Santa Rosa hit 86 degrees, which compares to an old record of 68. Today was very warm once again, with widespread highs in the 60s and 70s in NorCal and 70s and 80s in the Southland. Temperatures will slowly fall this week as offshore flow weakens, temps aloft fall a bit, and the ridge moves right overhead, leading to better subsidence and a dense fog layer beneath the still-strong inversion in NorCal. Weather will continue to be dry everywhere and pleasant in most places outside of the central and southern Sacramento Valley. Dry weather is extremely likely to continue–with no exceptions–across the entire state for at least another 9-10 days, which puts us in the last week of the month. The GFS has begun to indicate the potential for a pattern change near day 10, which would definitely bring much cooler weather (and possibly downright cold conditions) and probably at least some local light precipitation in NorCal. The most recent 18z “maverick” run, however, does indicate somewhat more potential for precipitation days 10 and beyond than previous model runs. If rain does fall in the last week of January, that will be the only thing that keeps us from having the driest January ever in the state of California–that is, if no more precip were to fall this month (and keep in mind that it will still be dry for 9+ days), we would be faced with the driest “wettest” month of the year in history. Even with a moderate cold storm, it’ll be in the top ten, esp. for NorCal. We shall see…if this pattern change does not materialize, or it does not bring real precipitation, we’re going to start to run out of opportunities.

On an non weather-related note, I would like to kindly ask those who frequent Weather West and leave comments on this blog to refrain from posting material that does not at least distantly relate to the weather, climate, water, science, etc. of California or the western United States.  Also, I would like to sepcifically request that members do not make posts containing multiple links, as these tend to slow down the server and cause problems with filtering comments.

Thanks!