United States

Remnants of Fabio to Impact California

July 17, 2012; 12:20 PM

Though Fabio continues to weaken and will drop below tropical storm status Tuesday night and be just a leftover swirl of low clouds later Wednesday, there will be impacts that affect California.

Here is how Fabio looked around midday Tuesday on satellite picture.

Much of the convection is on the north side and southerly flow is shearing all the remaining convection to the north side.

On the infrared satellite picture one can see that much of the middle and upper-level moisture extends to the north of the storm as well.

The upper-level feature associated with Fabio will totally separate from the low-level center and will head due north toward Southern California later Wednesday/Wednesday night and into central California Thursday. The low off the northern California coast and the high over the western Plains steering this feature almost due north.

These are notoriously difficult features to try to figure out with regards to rainfall potential. But more times than not they do more than most models would say, especially when it comes during the nighttime hours. Certainly clouds increase in Southern California tomorrow (after morning low clouds go away) and there will be a lot of clouds tomorrow night with clouds spreading north into central California later tomorrow night. The GFS and the European are pretty much in step with each other printing out a little rainfall, as early a late tomorrow afternoon in the San Diego area and anytime tomorrow night into the Los Angeles Basin. I would have to agree that spotty showers and thundershowers can occur. With a lot of the moisture being middle and upper level moisture it is more likely than not that showers will be on the light side as per amounts that fall. But still this is unusual and a bit of thunder and lightning is possible as well.

The feature moves quickly away from Southern California Thursday morning but impacts central California for a time during the day. Similar weather can occur as farther south with the best chance for a shower or thundershower over the higher terrain.

It will be interesting to see how all this transpires as it unfolds Wednesday afternoon into Thursday. But no matter, it is unusual and it brings a little excitement to an area that does not see a lot of weather excitement this time of year.

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