Atmospheric river to blast West Coast with more flooding, high country snow
The last in a series of storms will bring renewed flooding downpours, gusty winds and high-country snow to the Northwest and Northern California into Tuesday night. Snow levels will be much higher than last week.
Quieter weather has arrived in the Sierra, with the next round of storms in the West targeting the Cascades and Rockies.
A new series of Pacific storms is renewing flooding concerns along the West Coast and bringing some snow to the high country in the Cascades and intermediate elevations over Idaho, western Montana and northwestern Wyoming.
Rain spread onto the coast of the Northwest this past weekend and continued to expand to the south and east over the interior Northwest and into Northern California Tuesday.
As if the storm isn’t enough, a fresh atmospheric river will continue across Northern California into Tuesday evening.
This concentrated plume of Pacific moisture will be directed into Northern California, where another 1-3 inches of rain will foster more flooding. The rest of the Interstate-5 corridor in the Northwest will receive an additional inch or so of rain, which, combined with earlier rain and saturated soil, will increase the risk of additional flooding.
Rain will expand into the San Francisco Bay Area and from the Sacramento Valley to the northern part of the San Joaquin Valley Tuesday afternoon and night.
“The main spots prone to flooding will be just north of San Francisco Bay in areas of rugged terrain and in the Sierra foothills of Central California,” according to AccuWeather Meteorologist Kai Kerkow.
Snow restricted to high country
Snow levels will be much higher than they were during last week's storm.
“The storm moving into California through the early week will be much warmer than the series of storms that hit the state last week. Snow levels will be confined primarily above 8,000 feet, limiting travel impacts to the highest mountain passes,” said Kerkow.
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The storm with its rain and snow will push the Sierra snow moisture content even closer to the historical average.
According to the latest snowpack data, snow in the northern Sierra is well below the historical average, while the snow in the central and southern Sierra is 4-27% below average. Even after the monster storm last week, the water content in the snow is still below average simply due to the large gap between winter storms this year.
Avalanche risks will increase above 7,500 feet, particularly where heavy, wet snow accumulates. Snowfall will generally occur above the passes in the Sierra Nevada, the Siskiyous and the southern Cascades.
As the storm shifts into the northern Rockies from Tuesday to Wednesday, 8-12 inches of snow are expected above 5,500 feet.
High pressure is expected to bring a period of dry weather to the West from Wednesday into at least early next weekend.
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