A Period of Wet Weather in the Southwest

At least for now, it looks like the weather in California and the Southwest is transitioning into some winter weather. That means rain.

A band of moisture stretching from northern California to the west-southwest well out in the Pacific will slowly move south as a couple of waves of energy move along this ribbon of moisture. Rain in northern California tonight will spread south through the night and reach much of the Central Coast by morning. Rain will also move south in the Sierra with relatively high snow levels of 7,000 to 7,500 feet with precipitation making it to south of Yosemite by morning. Rainfall amounts will be up to, even a bit above, an inch from the Bay Area through the Napa Valley and also in the Sacramento Valley with rain amounts diminishing to 0.25-0.50 of an inch farther south along the Central Coast. The San Joaquin Valley will see less rain with between 0.10 and 0.30 of an inch most likely. This is a nice little rainmaker and its rain that is needed even if it is disruptive to being outside or driving.

As for much of southern California, most of the rain will have to wait for Wednesday night and Thursday. During that time, another batch of energy will move south in the eastern Pacific off the coast and will eventually form a closed low west of Pt. Conception by late Thursday that settles to just off the far southern California coast Friday and Saturday. I expect a few showers to move through southern California outside of the deserts, with the deserts perhaps getting more shower by late Thursday and Thursday night. Rainfall amounts in the south are probably going to be highly variable between 0.10 and 0.33 of an inch.

There are a lot of questions of what is going to happen Friday and Saturday in Southern California very dependent on where the low exactly is and any spokes of energy rotating around. What is certain is that east of the lower from the Lower Deserts of California to all of Arizona and parts of New Mexico deep southerly flow brings a lot of moisture north for rain and showers likely both days. This is by far the wettest-looking couple of days of the season. Some of the coolest too. There will probably be some decent rain amounts before this is all said and done which might not be until after Sunday.

Back to Southern California, it seems likely there could be a few showers around Friday or Saturday, but farther north the chances decrease. There is a better chance for a shower in Orange County and the Inland Empire than in Ventura County. What is interesting is that somehow the GFS is producing an enhanced area of rain north and west of the low Thursday night into Friday morning over all of LA County. It’s the only model saying that, but as we all know, dealing with closed lows is a crap shoot at best.

A little message to all... Because of some of your feedback I will be posting again my blog on a more regular basis for the Western states. I will be mostly concentrating on from Washington state to Arizona. There probably will not be daily updates but at least once or twice a week. It can be more than that depending on the weather pattern. I hope this pleases you and I would love to hear your feedback. So maybe I should sing… I’m back in the saddle again…..

The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of AccuWeather, Inc. or AccuWeather.com