In a world getting used to extreme weather, 2023 is starting out more bonkers than ever and meteorologists are saying it’s natural weather weirdness with a bit of help from human-caused climate change. Much of what’s causing problems worldwide is coming out of a roiling Pacific Ocean, transported by a wavy jet stream, experts said.
Bay Area residents would do well to keep their gloves handy, as they’ll be fighting a parade of storms that started on Boxing Day. Monday’s contender brought light showers and winds that evolved into heavy rainfall and intense winds by the Tuesday morning rush hour. In parts of the East Bay hills, Peninsula and North Bay highlands, winds gusted over 50 mph and were accompanied by intense rainfall across the region, where totals exceeded an inch and a quarter at both official downtown San Francisco and Oakland weather stations. More torrential downpours came down over the Santa Cruz Mountains and North Bay highlands, where stations like Felton and Mt. Tam exceeded 4 inches of rain.
December’s parade of winter storms left a mark on California’s snowpack, with some substantial gains in the Sierra Nevada and Southern Cascades’ snowfall totals tallied in past days. The state has already seen an active wet season that began in September, but even with recent deluges, data shows that much more precipitation is needed to actually get out of multiyear drought.
As the first winter storms rolled through this month, a King Air C90 turboprop aircraft contracted by the hydropower company Idaho Power took to the skies over southern Idaho to make it snow.
Flying across the cloud tops, the aircraft dropped flares that burned as they descended, releasing plumes of silver iodide that caused ice crystals to form and snow to fall over the mountains.
Days after a weather system brought snow conditions along stretches of the nation from Malibu, California, eastward for 1,500 miles, a new series of storms could lead to a wintry mess for much of the nation.
A storm tracking from the southern Plains to the Northeast will bring areas of heavy snow and ice from Kansas into the Great Lakes region Monday into Wednesday, the National Weather Service warned. Snow totals exceeding one foot are possible across parts of Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Iowa.
One storm does not make a “Miracle March” but what an impact the last few days have had on the Sierra snowpack.
Continuous snow at Lake Tahoe since Saturday morning has added 13% to the snowpack, according to Jeff Anderson, water supply specialist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Nevada.
“To gain back that amount this time of year is really hard,” Anderson told the Tribune.
It’s a new year, and a time to take stock in California’s most precious commodity: water.
While October marks the start of the new water year, state hydrology leaders opened the new year with the first measure of snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, east of Sacramento.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
