November 7, 2017
Summary: Looking at satellite imagery this afternoon, there are two distinct and wide areas of cloud cover moving into the Pacific coast. The first is ahead of a strong low pressure system moving towards the Pacific Northwest coast with cloud cover extending southward into extreme northern California. The second is the southern branch of the jet stream which is moving into northern Baja and southeast California. In between are clear skies. For now, there is weak upper level high pressure just off shore and it extends inland over California. The high will be shoved progressively further south Wednesday and Wednesday night as that northern trough spreads precipitation over northern California. This should be a fairly major event for the northern part of the state, however models this afternoon show a strong westerly flow undercutting the low. This early in the season, this activity should hamper the movement of the precipitation into our region.
For the third model run in a row, the southern limit of the precipitation is shown at a Monterey/Merced/Yosemite line Thursday into early Friday with only a slight chance of light showers progressing as far south as Fresno County. This will be a non event for the south valley. A flat zone of high pressure will again extend over California Friday afternoon through Sunday. The next Pacific storm to drop out of the Gulf of Alaska and into California will arrive Sunday night, theoretically spreading showers over central California Monday. As mentioned in earlier reports, I would not be surprised to see the rain line nudged further north on models as often happens this early in the rainfall season. For now, we’ll just go with a chance of showers from mainly Fresno County northward for early next week.
A westerly flow will generally continue through Monday so a minor warming trend will occur with temperatures moving into the low to mid 70s Wednesday and Thursday.
Forecast: Mostly clear skies tonight. Mostly clear Wednesday morning with high clouds showing up Wednesday afternoon. Increasing cloudiness Wednesday night with a slight chance of light showers from Fresno County north Thursday into early Friday. partly cloudy Friday afternoon through Saturday morning. Mostly clear to occasionally partly cloudy Saturday through Sunday. Increasing cloudiness Sunday night with a chance of rain Monday and Monday night, mainly from Fresno County northward. Partly cloudy Tuesday.
Short Term:
| Madera 40/73/47/72 | Reedley 41/73/47/71 | Dinuba 40/73/46/71 | |
| Porterville 40/74/45/73 | Lindsay 39/74/44/72 | Delano 46/75/48/73 | |
| Bakersfield 49/76/53/73 | Arvin 46/77/52/73 | Taft 53/76/55/72 | |
| Lamont 48/77/50/73 | Pixley 41/75/46/73 | Tulare 40/73/45/71 | |
| Woodlake 39/74/44/71 | Hanford 40/74/46/72 | Orosi 39/74/45/72 | |
Winds: Winds will be generally less than 10 MPH with periods of near calm conditions through Wednesday. Winds Wednesday night and Thursday will be out of the south to southeast at 5 to 10 MPH with locally stronger gusts from mainly Fresno northward. Winds will be out of the northwest at 5 to 10 MPH Thursday night and Friday, becoming light Friday night and Saturday.
Rain: Models haven’t changed much from this morning. They continue to show precipitation over northern California Wednesday night then down to a Monterey/Merced/Yosemite line from Thursday into early Friday. if we leave a little wiggle room, it would put a slight chance of showers down to about Fresno County. Expect dry conditions south of Fresno County.
Dry weather will continue Friday through Sunday then a new low will drop out of the Gulf of Alaska and into the Pacific Northwest and northern California Sunday night and Monday. Models do indicate the possibility of showers spreading down the valley Monday, but for now we’ll put that very much in the chance category, considering how early we are in the season and how overly aggressive medium range models have been of late.
Frost Information: All locations will be above 32 degrees tonight and each night for the next 7 to possibly 10 days.
Next Report: Wednesday, November 8