Santa Ana winds and a look ahead to the next western US storm
A strong area of high pressure will continue to hold across the Great Basin through the weekend and will help bring a Santa Ana wind event to Southern California.
Models show around a 1048 mb high building across the Great Basin Friday and gradually weakening through the weekend. This will result in a strong offshore flow across Southern California and potentially damaging wind gusts across the Southern California mountains.
12Z GFS model for Friday afternoon PST. This graphic shows pressure plotted at 1-mb. Notice the packing of the pressure lines in the Southwest. This will help drive a Santa Ana wind event Friday and through the weekend.
Winds will begin to increase as early as tonight but will really ramp up during Friday. Gusts of 60 mph are possible across the mountains and even through some of the canyons where the winds get funneled. With all of the recent rain, trees may come down easier so be careful. High profile vehicles will feel the effects of the winds the most. Gusty winds will also sweep through the foothills and can toss around some lawn furniture or trash cans, so tie up any loose objects! There can be wind gusts of 45 mph across the High Desert as well.
Winds will gradually weaken over the weekend as the high weakens but wind will remain gusty.
Outside of California, high pressure will keep the atmosphere capped and will bring fog issues across some of the valleys in the West. There is some cold air associated with this high. Many places will continue to run 5 to 15 F below-normal through the weekend. Watch out for freezing fog and slippery travel.
As noted earlier, the high will begin to break down through the weekend and by Tuesday, we are looking at our next storm system arriving at the middle of next week. As of now, models show this upper-level low impacting the Pacific Northwest and far northern California the most with rain and snow.
Shown above is the mean 500-mb height anomaly from the GFS ensemble. Models are in agreement that the next western U.S. storm system will likely arrive during the middle of next week, as indicated by the lower than normal height values (blue shade).
We'll have more updates as we get closer. Thanks for reading. You can reach me on Twitter @RootWx or via e-mail: jordan.root@accuweather.com with any questions or comments.
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