16 Day Forecast, Thursday, January 23rd, thru Saturday, February, 8th, 2014;
As expected the phone has been ringing “off the proverbial hook” as would be expected during a wx crisis (i.e. drought with historic magnitude)… with dozens of extensive conversations with fellow meteorological colleagues across CA and throughout the US during the past week in particular. There is a growing sense of urgency for rainfall in CA that is understandably producing very high anxiety levels. In fact a common topic besides the shock and awe of the wx charts, has been to discuss that many mets have expressed a sincere feeling of hopelessness and depression in the lack of desire to put forth such potentially grim news regarding the record drought we are experiencing. Some are even afraid to answer the phones anymore due to pressure from callers who are angry and upset with Mother Nature’s unfavorable conditions, and many in the media are equally frustrated for the same reasons as well. We hear from mets and media every day, and for some it has been particularly painful to be the brunt of an angry farmer, rancher, cattleman or anyone else who has a desire to vent. The need to combat a feeling of powerlessness by attacking or blaming someone, (like the Weatherman) is not a time honored way to respond to unwelcomed news. We thank you in advance for your patience and endurance, it’s been a rough year and could likely get worse over the next 4-6 months, …and hopefully we’ll all make it thru these testing times. So remember one thing; there’s a metaphor that has been used for centuries…“Don’t shoot the messenger” as W. Shakespeare said in Henry the IV. There is a code of conduct during a time of war or famine and it does no good to lash out at the blameless bearer of bad news. Collectively representing the meteorological community let us say that, we are all doing the best that we can with the model guidance that we have and there is no one to blame for what is happening. Thank you for understanding.
Wx Headline; Record-Setting max temps at the hottest Stations during the afternoons continuing this week. Unbelievable record dry conditions continue to prevail during thru the end of January for CEN/SOCAL, with some rainfall expected to reach into portion of NORCAL, especially into the NW Coastal region. At this time both guidance charts as well as the CNRFC contend that the Feather River basin and northern Sierra remain dry thru Jan, however a storm system is knocking on the door for NORCAL on Jan 31st. If those dry charts verify, not only does January close with Historic Record-Setting dryness for the month and for the season, but February may begin on a dry note as well for CEN/SOCAL. There is much uncertainty regarding the initial arrival timing of the first storm to reach into NORCAL, with the earliest potential storm system possibly on, Mon, Jan 27th as the system moves eastward rapidly, it does not appear to make it into CENCAL, nor does it leave much precip over NORCAL either. If the GFS verifies as currently indicated in 8 days ending January 31st it will produce a Record-Setting dry month for most of CA, smack in the middle of the rainy season and continuing the string of dry months this season. Additional comments below in Special Notations;
Observations; Satellite Imagery shows cloudiness over CENCAL increasing as a tiny upper level Low Pressure develops NE of Stockton. A very tight pressure gradient is increasing over CENCAL with about a 8mb pressure differential between the Eastside SJV and the Owens Valley, producing increasing downsloping winds funneling down the Sierra and Tehachapi Mts into the SJV with adiabatic heating forcing temps to soar during Thursday even though skies were partly cloudy to overcast in the far south and topping out into the lower 80°’s!!! With the compressional heating, the dewpoints are dropping into the single digits with a Red Flag Warning issued by Hanford NWS to cover the potential threat for rapidly spreading fires. Winds gusting up to 59mph at Lamont have been recorded in the SJV, as temps in the south valley are holding above 70° at midnight, with the 71° at Bakersfield at midnight about +20° warmer than the previous night.
24hr Precip Summary highlights to 9am Thursday; none
FORECAST SUMMARIES
Days 1-7;
Thu, Jan 23rd The RRR High Pressure ridge circulation center shifts northward to a position along the BC, Canada coastline, with a trough pattern from the Aleutians digging SE toward Hawaii. The disturbance forming over CENCAL retrogrades westward along the base of the ridge circulation, which produces clouds, but lacks much moisture. If this vort had some moisture with it then convective activity could be possible as a remote possibility but highly unlikely. Instead snow flurries are possible into the Sierra, only. Strong southerly winds and adiabatic heating produce high temps over the South Valley, with blowing dust and extremely low dewpoints. In general CA has mild/dry conditions continuing with more record high temps. Cloud coverage and wind mixing with continued downsloping keeps mins very warm overnight, especially in the south.
Fri, Jan 24th An impressive Atmospheric River (AR) stretches from the Maritime Continent to a stationary Low Pressure storm center that is locked into position along the western periphery of the West Coast High Pressure, therefore the moisture stream takes a 90° left turn and heads north into southern Alaska. The West Coast High Pressure cell is nosing onshore into western WA/OR and SW BC, Canada with a strong SE flow pattern for CA producing more high winds into the South Valley with continued downsloping adiabatic heating with occasional clouds. Dry/mild conditions with prevail over the rest of CA with occasional clouds and with additional record-setting warmth. Wind and clouds diminish overnight.
Sat, Jan 25th The West Coast RRR High Pressure ridge aligns SE to NW from CA up into northern Alaska. The previously mention AR continues to wrap around the Low Pressure on the western periphery of the ridge, so the moisture ends up mainly affecting the Aleutians and a subtropical fetch of moisture approaches SOCAL, with increasing clouds from the south reaching into the South Valley. With strong high pressure over CA, persistence remains with warm/mild conditions.
Sun, Jan 26th While the High Pressure ridge remains dominant over the West Coast, the stationary mid PAC storm system continues to gain size, intensity and moisture as the eastern flank of the moisture field inches closer toward NORCAL. CA remains persistent with warm/mild conditions with subtropical cloudiness spreading over portions of CEN/SOCAL mainly along the coast. Overnight the charts suggest that the moisture field finally reaches Cape Mendocino, attached to a long-fetched AR that trails SW all the way back to the Maritime Continent.
Mon, Jan 27th The High Pressure ridge narrows over the PACNW the main portion of the ridge migrates toward Alaska. The ridge axis moves over CA carrying the AR stream of moisture with it. The large GOA Low Pressure spreads S and E, with warm rains spreading into NORCAL down to SFO to perhaps the Feather River basin with partly cloudy skies southward. Overnight the West Coast High Pressure rebuilds offshore which shuts off the moisture flow into NORCAL. Clouds spread over CENCAL, but lack precip.
Tue, Jan 28th The RRR High Pressure ridge intensifies to 582dm heights over CEN/SOCAL with an NW flow pattern suggested which should warm temps over CA, with fair/mild/dry conditions, with occasional clouds over portions of NORCAL.
Wed, Jan 29th The High Pressure weakens as a series of disturbance flow into the PACNW, beneath High Pressure over Alaska, as the storm track is diverted north of CA with mostly fair skies and mild/warm conditions continuing. Overnight, charts suggest that the High Pressure ridge collapses. With a zonal westerly flow reaching into OR and increasing clouds flowing into portions of NOR/CENCAL.
Days 8-16, Long Range into Fantasyland Outlook; Day 8 begins;
Thu, Jan 30th shows the flat zonal-type flow pattern from 140W into CA with weak disturbances flowing into the PACNW. While CA is within the westerly zonal flow pattern there is no organized storm system to enter.
Fri, Jan 31st END OF THE MONTH…shows High Pressure rebuilding offshore at 140W which places CA into a NW flow pattern, with several disturbances flowing into the PACNW and then into the Great Basin, brushing thru NORCAL and bringing only clouds to CENCAL. An extraordinary night awaits as we tally the Statewide rainfall totals.
Sat, Feb 1st shows the RRR High Pressure ridge rebuilding at 140W N up into Alaska with a downwind flank of frigid ARCTIC air dropping southward toward the PACNW. Under a cooling NW flow pattern CA remains fair, and dry as the massive RRR High Pressure is forcing another highly amplified pattern.
Sun, Feb 2nd shows the massive High Pressure ridge at 135W blocks all storm activity up into the Aleutian chain and directs the frigid eastern downwind flank of the ridge to advect an ARCTIC blast to dive into the northern Rockies, while CA remains fair, and dry.
Mon, Feb 3rd shows High Pressure ridging along the West Coast providing CA with fair, and dry conditions, while the cold air to the east digs into the Midwest. Overnight the offshore portion of the ridge weakens significantly and allows another surge of moisture to approach the CA/OR border with possible rains reaching Crescent City while clouds increase over CENCAL.
Tue, Feb 4th shows the ridge axis shifts into the Great Basin with a weak amplitude trough from the GOA moving into the PACNW with a moist flow pattern reaching into the PACNW and portions of NORCAL with partly cloudy skies spreading into CENCAL.
Wed, Feb 5th shows the High Pressure ridge rebuilding at 140W up into the GOA with the resultant downwind flank advecting cold air on a NW flow pattern into the PACNW and NORCAL, with some rainfall, while skies are partly cloudy over CENCAL. Overnight a weak/cold disturbance drops southward into NORCAL.
Thu, Feb 6th shows High Pressure nosing into the PACNW as the trough digs southward into SOCAL with diminishing cloudiness over NOR/CENCAL. Further north another very cold trough begins to leave Alaska and drops southward into the GOA.
Fri, Feb 7th with weak High Pressure over CA, the next trough approaches the West Coast as a High Pressure ridge builds at 160W which allows a pathway for the trough to dig offshore west of CA. Overnight the new trough deepens offshore the PACNW as winds aloft over CA switch to SW.
Sat, Feb 8th the -32°C cold core Low Pressure storm moves closer toward the OR coast with a strong vort and cold front spreading thru CA with mod to heavy rains suggested for NORCAL and light to mod rains spreading into CENCAL. Is this storm believable? According to the 06Z model arriving it is but is once again delayed by 6 hours. Sound familiar?
Special Notations;
One of the most curious attributes about the current particular dry/windy storm system over CA, is that the original vort energy has traveled from the western flank of the High Pressure ridge on Monday, Jan 20th, over the top of the ridge, dropped southward along the east flank of the ridge and formed into a -23°C cut-off tiny 564dm Low Pressure circulation during Thursday afternoon located between Stockton and Tahoe. That was quite a remarkable trek. Yet, forecast charts on Friday take this piece of energy and pulled it back to the west, beneath the unbelievably strong 582dm High Pressure circulation positioned over SW BC, Canada so that by tomorrow night it is basically near the same vicinity that it was originally located on Monday. So it has done a complete circle around the High Pressure circulation…intact. Have never have seen that before. We’re not done, it gets better. The vort climbs back up the western flank of the ridge once again up into the GOA on Saturday, moves into Alaska on Sunday, over the top of the ridge on Monday, then dives southward along the east flank of the ridge into northern BC, Canada on Tuesday, into southern BC, Canada on Wednesday as a new cold trough carves out into the PACNW on Thu/Fri. So this little bugger, not only made it around the High Pressure cell once, it tried to do it twice. As the cold trough continues to dig southward on Sat, Feb 1st cold air advects into CA with much cooler temps.
Even with the tiny upper level devil in vicinity, the RRR High Pressure ridge continues to produce dry conditions, record-setting max temps, strong downsloping winds, poor air quality due to dust, clear to partly cloudy hazy/dusty skies. The highly amplified pattern continues like a broken record with forecast charts trends suggesting the ridge axis is reinforced, which would imply additional days of warmth this coming week, with a dry offshore flow pattern continuing. If records are set again Friday (probable) it will mark the 14th consecutive day of RECORD-SETTING temps for CA. A list of the new records for CA during Wed/Thu is provided below. Most troubling is the record temps at South Lake Tahoe on both days.
The teleconnections indicate that the ridging over the central Atlantic will maintain dominant support for the persistence of the blocky Hudson Bay Low Pressure trough into eastern NOAM. Expecting the West Coast High Pressure ridge which is now a closed circulation to migrate northward into the Yukon while the middle of the ridge narrows. This will add complexity to the forecast beyond Day 6/7, into next Wed/Thu as the ridge shifts over Alaska with a mixed zonal-type flow pattern developing across the PAC basin and moving into the PACNW with possible return surges of moisture arriving as early as Monday. Not surprisingly there is a fair amt of spread with the shape/timing of EPAC energy that may flow into the West Coast ridge by next the weekend of Feb 1. Forecast models are having significant difficulty with the large scale synoptic flow pattern beyond Day 10/12, (gee what a surprise) with flip/flopping occurring daily between model runs with regards to whether rainfall over NORCAL will be light or heavy, and whether CENCAL receives none, light or moderate rainfall. Consistency still holds the rains from reaching into most of CA until Feb 1, which if that validates will produce a Historic January for the record-books. Four times thus far this season the RRR High Pressure ridge has proven to be unexpectedly resilient and stronger than initially forecast by models, and we are inclined to believe this could be the fifth attempt to bluff and that could be the reason the models are flip/flopping back and forth between dry and wet solutions for CENCAL. But the expected closing upper High Pressure ridge over extreme NW NOAM would seem to increase the potential for some PAC flow energy to reach the West Coast…at least temporarily. The big question is how much, when and how far south? In the meantime, both Coasts are setting records at opposite extremes, West Coast records for heat with temps +15° to +20° above average and East Coast records for cold being up to -30° below average. When was the last time we ever saw a record high max for Crescent City…in January? It happened Thursday! These records pale in comparison to what may lay ahead on January 31st as Statewide precip totals are tallied.
As next week unfolds we will unveil climate rainfall analysis charts that may be enlightening, and will hopefully provide useful insight into the future Outlook for CA, from a climate perspective. History does repeat.
TEMPS
NEW RECORD TEMPS
Wednesday
Station New Record Old Record__
South Lake Tahoe 57° 55° set in 1994
Merced 67° 63° set in 2001
Madera 68° 66° set in 2009
Hanford 68° 65° set in 2000
Red Bluff 79° 78° set in 1968
OAK Dwntwn 75° 67° set in 2013
Mt View 74° 72° set in 1968
San Jose 72° (Ties) 72° set in 2011
Gilroy 74° 72° set in 1989
Burbank 81° 80° set in 1976 The 10th consecutive day in a row with 80° or above, ALL-TIME record for JAN
Sandberg 70° 66° set in 1948
Santa Maria 80° (Ties) 80° set in 1934 Beats an 80 year old record
Thermal 84° (Ties) 84° set in 1968
Elsinore 84° 81° set in 2013
Palomar 49° (Ties) 49° set in 1950 Beats a 60 year old record
Thursday
Station New Record Old Record__
South Lake Tahoe 57° 55° set in 1994
Merced 69° 65° set in 2003
Madera 72° 65° set in 2003
Hanford 68° 67° set in 2003
Bakersfield 79° 77° set in 1970
Crescent City 75° 70° set in 1968 Beat a 46 year old record
Eureka 70° 65° set in 2006
Red Bluff 76° (Ties) 76° set in 1948
OAK Dwntwn 72° (Ties) 72° set in 2011 and 1974
SAC Dwntwn 71° 69° set in 1948
SAC Exec 69° 68° set in 1948
Stockton 64° (Ties) 64° set in 1991
Needles 76° (Ties) 76° set in 1910 A 104 year old record
Yuma, AZ 82° 80° set in 1981
Minimum Temps this morning at the Paramount Citrus Stations ranged from the coolest minimum of a 30° at Orosi and Rayo, rising to the warmest minimum of 37° at Root Creek and Loma. Increasing amts of cloud coverage and wind mixing kept some Valley stations warmer than expected.
Maximum Temps yesterday afternoon at the Paramount Citrus Stations ranged from the coolest maximum of 67° at Horizon and Root Creek and rising to the warmest maximum of 73° at Ducor.
PRECIPITATION FORECAST
Day 1 – 5 QPF:
At 12Z (9am) Thursday thru the period Monday night (Tuesday @4am) shows; Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon DRY.
5DAY ACCUMULATION CHART:
Days 6 & 7 QPF thru next Tue/Wed shows CA/NV/UT/AZ completely DRY
16-Day QPF estimates (from the 12Z GFS) for;
Days 1-8 shows DRY conditions for CA
Days 9-16 shows DRY conditions for CA thru Sat, Feb 8th with NORCAL becoming wet with up to questionable validity to the accumulations because so much of the precip falls upon Day 15 and 16, which is what it also showed yesterday too…out there at Day 15/16. This is not comforting nor building confidence. The latest 0Z operational GFS forecast model shows up to 3 inches for the far NW coastal region, with 1.5 inches from the Russian River basin NE to Mt Lassen, with 1.25 inches for the Feather River basin, with up to 1 inch for the North Bay to Marysville, with 0.75 inch from Monterey to Stockton to the Tuolumne River basin, with up to 0.5 inch for portion of the SJV and Southern Sierra and coastal portions of SOCAL and up to 0.25 inch for the South SJV and most of SOCAL.
Comparison of both Thursday’s 384hr GFS QPF charts, morning and evening;
Thursday’s 12Z 9am morning GFS 384hr, 16Day QPF Chart, showing up to 2.5 inches for the far NW portion of CA, with up to 1.5 inches from Ukiah to Chico, with up to 1 inch for the Bay region to Stockton to YNP, up to 0.5 inch for Monterey to Merced to the San Joaquin River basin, up to 0.25 inch for Morro Bay to Porterville southward thru most of SOCAL and >0.1 inch for the deserts.
Thursday’s 0Z 9pm evening GFS 384hr, 16Day QPF Chart, with slightly increased amts of rainfall as compared to the earlier 12Z. However the largest chunk of precip (about 50% of the total amt) arrives at the very end of the 384hr Fantasyland charts on Day 16. Therefore this colorful picture could be misleading because the models keep shoving the storm arrival schedule further out into the next 12hr or 24hr period, each new day, so therefore the storm never gets any closer to reality. Confidence for significant (1.00 inch or more) precip into NORCAL is HIGH, confidence for significant (1.00 inch) precip into CENCAL is LOW for the period ending Sat, Feb 8th.
Feather River Basin 10-Day QPF showing only 0.00 inch has fallen since Jan 14. The suggested snow level at 12,000ft on Thu, Jan 30th indicates another warm spell, which is quickly followed by much cooler temps Feb 1st to Feb 3rd. The CNRFC is not buying into the suggestion of precip being delivered into the northern Sierra/Feather River basin thru Feb 3rd according to this most recent forecast issued Thursday.
SATELLITE
Water Vapor 4KM Image of the West Coast Thursday, January 23rd, 2013, shows a small disturbance forming over CENCAL which is moisture starved. Meanwhile High Pressure dominates the West Coast and is shifting north.
Enhanced Satellite Image of the CA Thursday, January 23rd, 2013, shows increasing cloudiness developing over CENCAL as an upper Low Pressure circulation develops over CENCAL east of Stockton. Unfortunately this storm is dry and should not produce generalized rainfall, however a few sprinkles or snow flurries could occur into the Southern Sierra.
If you have any questions please call or text at any time of day or night.
Comments and suggestions always welcome.
Atmospherics Group International
Dan Gudgel Steve Johnson
559-696-9697 559-433-7316
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