Category: Forecast

October 27, 2020 Summary: Satellite imagery was quite interesting overnight.  Smoke from the Creek Fire and the SQF Fire is clearly shown on satellite moving from northeast to southwest across the south valley along with some very high, thin cirrus clouds. Surface pressures are still considerably higher over the Great Basin than over the California…

October 26, 2020 Summary: What we call a back door cold front moved through central California overnight with no precipitation.  At this hour, there are plenty of upslope clouds banked up against the north facing slopes of the Tehachapi Mountains and the west facing slopes of the southern Sierra Nevada, mainly in Tulare County.  These…

October 24, 2020 Summary: The weather pattern over the western U.S. is rapidly changing.  By the time we get into Tuesday morning, touches of winter will be in the air.  A cold trough of low pressure is currently digging southward from western Canada and stretches from eastern Washington to the northern Rockies.  By Sunday morning,…

October 23, 2020 Summary: A complex weather patter will develop over the weekend.  In the short term, upper level high pressure is located off the coast of the Pacific Northwest while a very cold trough of low pressure has engulfed the northern Rockies and much of the Midwestern U.S.  I found a few locations below…

October 22, 2020 Summary: Upper level high pressure over California is slowly breaking down.  There is a bulge in the jet stream in eastern Washington extending southeastward through the northern Rockies then into the northern Midwest.  The main center of upper level high pressure is off the northern California coast with a weak upper low…

  October 21, 2020 Summary: I’ll start this morning’s report with just a brief alert for early next week.  It’s possible local frost may occur Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.  I’ll detail that in the bottom portion of this summary.   Short term, we still have two high pressure systems at the upper levels of the…

October 20, 2020 Summary: The overall pattern has only subtly changed over the past 24 hours.  At the upper levels of the atmosphere, two high centers are apparent.  One is off the Baja coast with the other roughly 700 miles off the northern California coast.  Embedded within this large area of high pressure is a…

  October 19, 2020 Summary: On this day back in 1949 it was 30  degrees, which was the earliest freeze ever recorded.  By the standards of this year, it’s like we live on a different planet although I promise cooler temperatures are ahead this week.  Currently, there are two high centers out there.  The first…

October 17, 2020 Summary: Surface pressure this morning is still off shore but is roughly half of what it was 24 hours ago.  The key players is in the broad picture are upper level high pressure well off the northern California coast and a benign upper low located roughly 550 miles west of the southern…

October 16, 2020 Summary: At the upper levels of the atmosphere, strong high pressure is anchored several hundred miles west of the California coast.  At the surface, pressure is considerably higher over Nevada than over interior California.  For example, the pressure is 9.50 millibars higher at Tonopah than they are at Fresno and 11.50 mb…