Wild Overnight Weather Brings Hail, Lightning That Burned a House
Tow trucks and snow plows were in big demand across San Diego County early Friday as an overnight storm brought drenching rains, hail, snow and lightning to the region.
Tag Archive for: Weather
Early April Precipitation is Expected to be Below Normal Where it is Most Needed in Northern California
April showers may be more scarce than normal north of Point Conception in California, according to an outlook produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
This area where the probability of precipitation is below normal includes virtually all of Northern California and the crucial northern Sierra Nevada, where the state’s largest reservoirs are located.
While snow cover has increased thanks to a series of March storms, the Northern Sierra 8-Station Index stands at 56% of normal for the season. As of March 24, another 29.25 inches would be needed to reach the season normal of 54.52 inches.
Relentless Storms Continue to Soak Golden State With Rain, Mountain Snow
While California will not receive a soaking rain similar to what occurred at the beginning of the week, residents across the state can expect unsettled weather to stick around through Wednesday.
We Can No Longer Rely on Historical Data to Predict Extreme Weather
Floods and other dangerous weather extremes are only getting more intense and more frequent as our climate warms. Historically, we’ve always been able to predict these extremes by looking at how often they occurred in the past. But a new study published Wednesday in Science Advances reveals just how many of those forecasts actually fall short. In just a decade, the findings suggest, the climate has shifted so drastically that the frequency of past extreme events is no longer a reliable predictor.
Active Pattern to Bring Rain and Snow to the West in the Week Ahead
More rain and mountain snow will move through the West, including communities in worsening drought, in the early part of the week ahead. This wet pattern began when an area of low pressure moved into the California coast on Sunday. It brought more than an inch of rain to much of the Los Angeles area.
‘March Miracle’ Continues as Several Storms Queue Up for California
After an absence of major storms for much of the winter, the ‘March Miracle,’ in terms of wet weather, seems likely to continue next week in California.
The storm that brought drenching rain and yards of snow to the Sierra Nevada early this week was still lingering as of Wednesday night but will diminish over the next couple of days.
A lull in storms is forecast late this week to this weekend, but a new series of storms is destined to impact much of the West next week with more rain and mountain snow from Monday to Wednesday.
Stormy Weather Targets California Before Official Start of Spring
The final days of winter will bring more stormy weather across much of California.
A storm started off the weekend along the northern California coast, helping to produce snow and blizzard conditions across the Cascades and northern Rockies.
The storm will shift south along the California coast through early week, bringing precipitation to central and southern California.
Why Does the Weather Stall? New Theories Explain Enigmatic ‘Blocks’ in the Jet Stream
It was the summer of 2003 in Europe, and, for a while, it seemed as if Earth’s weather system had broken down. For weeks a huge mass of air stalled over the continent, slowly subsiding and suppressing cloud formation, leaving day after day of brilliantly clear skies. The mercury rose, and a record-breaking heat wave gripped countries including France and Germany, causing 70,000 deaths. Then, as abruptly as it set in, the persistent atmospheric block eased, and high winds brought relief.
Few weather phenomena are as widely experienced—but poorly understood—as an atmospheric block. When a block arises, typically at the western edge of a continent, the jet stream splits, trapping a blob of seemingly static air thousands of kilometers across. Such blocks can last for weeks, and drive heat waves, drought, and winter cold snaps.
San Francisco Could See Its First Rainfall Since January as a Potentially Wetter California Weather Pattern Takes Shape
Much needed rain will finally return to California and will likely end a month-plus dry streak in San Francisco and Sacramento. Dry conditions have prevailed across most of California since late January due to the upper-level pattern. A strong area of high pressure aloft near California has pushed the jet stream and storm track northward into the Pacific Northwest.
The persistence of this pattern has resulted in drought conditions during the wet season. Nearly 70% of the Golden State is abnormally dry, and about a third of the state is in moderate drought, according to the latest report from the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Drought In California Seems Inevitable. But Experts Say Don’t Panic
Some communities in California just experienced the driest February ever, and there’s around an 80 percent chance the state will enter a full-blown drought this year.
If that happens, it could be the third-driest year in over a century, according to modeling by the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis.
But even though around a quarter of California is undergoing moderate drought conditions experts say it’s too early to panic — they say a second year of drought is where things get dicey.
“The first year of a drought is really mostly a wake-up call,” said Jay Lund, the center’s director. “It will be prudent, if this turns out to be a dry year, for us to prepare for it to be a longer drought.”
