California Weather "Coffee Talk"- S.F. Bay Area, Forecasts and Observations- "Discuss amongst yourselves" Options

[idecline]

Coffee Talk

Mar. 18, 2012

Wow! What a storm....even LA and the Southland finally got hit with a winter storm, even though it took until Friday night into Saturdau to get there. We have been raining in Santa Cruz county since Tuesday and not a significant break in the rain until now. The cold core low of the storm moved by the coast all day Saturday and dropped temperatures from the high 50's-low 60's into the 40's and 50's today. Hail, thunderstorms, snow, and even a tornado was reported near Fresno, CA.

Ben Lomond station in the Santa Cruz Mountains had over 4 inches of rain in the first day of the storm, as the jet stream sagged slowly south stranding the front directly over the coastal mountains. This was a very typical 'winter' front coming down the coast and losing steam somewhere between San Francisco and Santa Cruz. The flow pulled the rain up the mountains and left little for the Santa Clara Valley and points Southward. A series of fronts have then been riding the jet down into Washington, Oregon, and Northern and Central California.

Wild weather has been the case all night with extreme winds from the NW and cool temperatures, unsettled pattern will remain at least through Tuesday. Right now a squally thunderstorm is hitting Santa Cruz with gusty winds and cold icy rain. Many areas have had upwards of 10 inches of rain this week...tomorrow Idee will get a better look at what this rain and snow for the Sierra's has done for our rain deficits.

Stay inside..if you can today...enjoy the weather and a cup of steaming hot coffee......or not...

[Beck]

Coffee Talk

Mar. 18, 2012

Wow! What a storm....even LA and the Southland finally got hit with a winter storm, even though it took until Friday night into Saturdau to get there. We have been raining in Santa Cruz county since Tuesday and not a significant break in the rain until now. The cold core low of the storm moved by the coast all day Saturday and dropped temperatures from the high 50's-low 60's into the 40's and 50's today. Hail, thunderstorms, snow, and even a tornado was reported near Fresno, CA.

Ben Lomond station in the Santa Cruz Mountains had over 4 inches of rain in the first day of the storm, as the jet stream sagged slowly south stranding the front directly over the coastal mountains. This was a very typical 'winter' front coming down the coast and losing steam somewhere between San Francisco and Santa Cruz. The flow pulled the rain up the mountains and left little for the Santa Clara Valley and points Southward. A series of fronts have then been riding the jet down into Washington, Oregon, and Northern and Central California.

Wild weather has been the case all night with extreme winds from the NW and cool temperatures, unsettled pattern will remain at least through Tuesday. Right now a squally thunderstorm is hitting Santa Cruz with gusty winds and cold icy rain. Many areas have had upwards of 10 inches of rain this week...tomorrow Idee will get a better look at what this rain and snow for the Sierra's has done for our rain deficits.

Stay inside..if you can today...enjoy the weather and a cup of steaming hot coffee......or not...

Yes but unfortunately Downtown L.A. is still 7.07" inches below normal, or 46% of normal to date. With only 5.98" inches of rain recorded this season as of this morning, 2011-12 is currently on track to be LA's sixth driest rainy season on record since records began in 1877. And much of Central and Northern California isn't doing too well either:

 thumbmaker.jpg ( 133.93K ) Number of downloads: 0


If the right conditions develop over California during Fall later this year, fire danger could be extremely high and large areas of wilderness would be closed off to the public due to the fire danger, as it did in 2002 and 2007. This would require heat/strong high pressure, Santa Ana Winds and/or Offshore Flow, and dried out vegetation. The last bad fire season we had was in 2008. The past two Falls, 2010 and 2011, had virtually non-existent fire seasons due to an abundance of early season storms and cool weather.

[idecline]

Coffee Talk
with your host
Paul Baldwin

Hi I'm Idee (substituting for Paul)... we are back...and we are energized....The Rainy Season is upon us....

Last weeks rain amounted to over 12 inches in the Santa Cruz mountains and parts of the North Bay area.

We have a very nice trough over the Western US and fronts are following the jet stream bringing rain into Northern and Central California. The next storm set to arrive Monday night into Tuesday looks very moist, with a possible more Southerly track by the looks of the jet stream energy on the lower edges of the front....  isanepac.gif ( 801.16K ) Number of downloads: 0


California is a really wacky State...when it comes to weather ...and many other things....

As Californians we get so used to the weather being somewhat boring and predictable, when in reality it is not!
Yes most of our rain comes during the months October through April but that does not apply everywhere in the State. True almost the whole State gets very little precipitation in the summer months but the downpours of summer monsoons sometimes brings inches of rain to areas that don't see that much rain again for years.
Now this year having been lulled to sleep by our boring non-existent Winter season (courtesy of La Nina: keeping the Polar jet riding high and dry all winter long). It seems we have gotten a reprieve with the waning La Nina and the movement of some of the trapped Polar air over the high latitudes that now we have a consistent flow of moisture into the Northwest.

Hopefully some of these storms will reach down into Southern California with some drenching rains ( a Sub-tropical jet connex?) and give needed drought relief to many areas....We shall see....

Coffee Talk: idee had Chai last night instead of coffee...it's a wonderful drink...warm and spicy....

So coffehouses are back in vogue....(in Seattle...where it rains everyday ) in the Bay Area...the weather has brought people inside to enjoy hot beverages and perhaps read a book (analog version preferred)...

Todays subject for discussion: Analog v. Digital....Real Books v. Electro-(Franken) pads....I Robot....

[idecline]

Coffee Talk
with your host
Paul Baldwin

Hi I'm Idee (substituting for Paul)...again....

We had another significant 'winter' storm come through last week, as a series of weather systems dropped a large amount of rainfall along the Northern and Central California coast.

On Friday Night a rare display of thunder and lightning roared through the Bay Area, there were hundreds of lightning strikes from the North Bay all the way to Monterey and points south of Big Sur. Torrential downpours from the wave of thunderstorms left over a inch of rain in many valley areas, with several inches falling in some mountain locations. It is indeed rare that we get a 'cold-core' storm that has a thunderstorm occur over the Bay Area, we rarely get a few thunderstorms in the heat of summer when a stray monsoonal cell will come our way. So all in all it was a wonderful last few weeks of rainy weather...Unfortunately Your host was too busy to report on any of this while it was occurring but slowly Central Coast and Bay Area are trying to crawl out of the rain deficit created by the non-existent 'winter' of last year's La Nina pattern.
Although a week of warm weather is in the immediate forecast, the slowly warming equatorial waters of the Eastern Pacific may yet extend this rainy season enough so that we can get up to a reasonable percentage of our 'normal' rainfall...

'Normal'...What is Normal? It seems that the preoccupation that humans have with 'normality' applies even in the perception of nature's work. Idee likes to believe that 'normal' is whatever nature gives you for that particular season, month, day, or hour....but i digress...a long idee rant is being suppressed about the pitfalls of 'comparison' and preoccupation with the past....I'm getting very disorientated...

Talk amongst yourselves....next update TBA

[suze]

It's June 4, the temps are struggling to reach 60 and it's raining. Not showering, mind you, but full fledged, pouring rain. I suppose it's better than June 4, 2011, which featured an all out storm but I'm still waiting for summer, at least something I can call a consistent summer pattern. We've had about a week's worth of lovely days but they are always short-lived and we're plunged back into the gray and gloom. Note that I'm not in SF but closer to San Jose where it's supposed to be toasty! Last year was a non-summer, the year before that was even colder, and apparently, that so-called predictable "Pacific High" that sets up here in the summer isn't going to establish itself for the foreseeable future. What gives? I'm all for a good rainy season but I also live for the warmth of summer. I'm starting to worry it doesn't happen here anymore. Can anyone explain why? (I'd appreciate not hearing about the need for rain, the love of rain, the "mild" temperatures. I understand the need for rain and I welcome it in its time and place....but this is summer and these temps are not mild they're below normal and cold.)

Thanks!

[idecline]

Coffee Talk:

After a long hiatus ...Coffee Talk is back on the air.....* APPLAUSE*

Idee is very sorry that he dropped the ball on keeping up with personal forecasts but it's a long story...

Now that this winter has had a much different start to it than last year...we will see if it continue to progress away from the lingering effects of a very strong La Nina signal. A pattern of Pacific Ocean warmth was building all last year...causing many to believe that El Nino was well on it's way...I was somewhat taken aback because when everyone jumps on the bandwagon then that usually means that the outcome is a little in doubt...The waters were warming in a paradoxical pattern to the standard El Nino...a weakness in the convection near Indonesia has sent several Kelvin waves of warmer waters Eastward...the coastal waters off South America warmed up very quickly, but the middle equatorial latitudes were slower...then abruptly the warming stopped as an echo Kelvin (upwelling ) wave came through that I believe was the back flow of the quick original warm up...ie; the return of the La Nina water as a result of such a deep warm water surge that began early in the year...

My idea is that we will remain somewhat neutral SST conditions until another Kelvin wave is generated in the next couple of months...winds are already steadily showing Eastern Anomalies around Borneo in the tropical Pacific and the main convection area is shifted back towards Sumatra and the Eastern Indian Ocean basin....If the polar pattern becomes more favorable the pacific jet stream should soon become much more highly active...and I do think there is a possibility of a warming in the Central equatorial basin...especially as OLR radiation is actually increasing in this area for the first time in a long time.
The sloshing of the Pacific Ocean is never completely neutral...it just hovers around the 'normal' as the phasing of different wind and ocean energies phase together (El Nino or La Nina) or are more haphazard...more variational pattern...of the so-called neutral ENSO conditions....

Lastly this is just a rant to get me started for the year

[idecline]

Coffee Talk:


After two weeks of cold...I have had it! Below freezing temps were reported widespread over the San Francisco Bay Area for the last several days....the highs have been struggling to get out of the 40's!

This is a very cold period that California has been stuck in with a blocking high to our West and a pool of cold Canadian air stuck in place without any mixing to move the air much. A gradual warming trend due to a thermal trough developing offshore should send daytime temps back to Normal range and even above normal temps in the daytime...nights will still be cool but not the freezing temps that were routinely in the 20's...one of the coldest periods since Dec. 1990.

Checking on the latest ENSO diagnostic discussion from the CPC (Climate Prediction Center) has said we are still in a ENSO neutral but there are some interesting side notes I gathered from the talk.

An active MJO has been progressing across the equatorial Pacific...the CPC says this is partially to blame for the La Nina-like conditions across the West Coast lately....a large area of cool water has been found in the eq. Eastern Pacific...due mainly to the upwelling phase of the last Kelvin wave...after the large SST gains we had during 2012 it is not surprising that the 'cooling' phase of the Kelvin waves has brought back a strong taste of the previous La Nina....oceans have a very long memory and the transferring of the colder water to the surface will give it a chance to dissipate as a new Kelvin wave (Downwelling-warm-phase) should be generated soon and begin to moderate the cooler SST's in the central equatorial Pacific Ocean (Enso 3.4)

As the recent SSW (Sudden Stratospheric Warming) drags cooler air South from the poles..I look for an abrupt pattern change in the West. Eventually a storm or two will finally break down some the resistance the stubborn high has had in the interior West and the Pacific jet stream may bring a lot of moisture in from a very active Northwestern Pacific Ocean feed. This should send the pattern back into a more normal amplified pattern which could benefit not only the WC with rain and storms...but give the mid-Atlantic and NorthEast a chance for some nice moisture laden storms.

Now if it just warms up a bit and the Giant storm off of Japan and Kamchatka progresses across the Pacific then we can Paraphrase Ronald Reagan "Energy from Gorbachev's home...Break down that Ridge"