May 10, 2019
Summary: How much rain that was received was certainly dependent upon location. Once you progress south of Fresno County, various pockets of real estate received impressive amounts of precipitation considering the time of year. I received emails from growers especially in the Arvin area with reports of 1.25” of precip.
The following are rainfall amounts as of 12:00pm: Fresno .04, Reedley .06, Lemoore .43, Porterville (trace), Buttonwillow .16, Taft .52, Bakersfield .34, Mettler .87, Lamont .95, and Delano .75.
As of the time of this writing, precipitation had ended with the exception of Kern County where scattered light showers were occurring. The heaviest precipitation occurred in two areas. First is over Santa Barbara County where showers and locally heavy thunderstorms are occurring. The second is an area of showers over the Kern County deserts. This area could hold together enough to threaten showers over the valley floor portion of Kern County later this afternoon, so we’ll keep a chance of showers in the forecast through this evening.
The center of this pesky cut off low is just west of Santa Maria. Models show the low moving south/southeast along the southern California coast and then inland through Baja by Saturday afternoon. The entire valley will be rain free by later tonight and through at least Wednesday of next week. We’ll keep a slight chance of showers in the forecast for Thursday, although my feeling is most of the active weather will be to our north and over the Sierra Nevada.
Forecast: Partly cloudy tonight north of Kern County. Still a chance of showers over Kern County through the evening. Partly cloudy Saturday morning. Becoming mostly clear Saturday afternoon through Tuesday night. partly cloudy Wednesday and Wednesday night. a slight chance of showers Thursday, mainly from Fresno County north. Partly cloudy Thursday night and Friday.
Temperatures: Lows tonight will drop into the mid to upper 50s. Highs Saturday will warm into the low to mid 80s. lows Saturday night will range in the mid 50s to the lower 60s with highs Sunday jumping into the upper 80s.
Next report: Saturday/May 11