Category: Forecast

 April 14, 2020 Summary: A ridge of upper level high pressure is aligned from north to south along the California coast with a ridge jutting northward along the British Columbia coast.  A weak wave of low pressure moved rapidly down the Sierra Nevada late yesterday and is in southern California this morning.  it did manage…

April 13, 2020 Summary: A large ridge of upper level high pressure covers the eastern Pacific with a ridge extending northward into the Gulf of Alaska.  Just to our east is a large trough of low pressure encompassing the interior western U.S.  California is on the far eastern rim of the off shore high, putting…

 April 11, 2020 Summary: The historic six day storm is now out of the picture for central California.  The center of circulation is now over southwest Arizona and will accelerate eastward, triggering a severe weather outbreak in the Midwest and the south.  The flow at the mid and upper levels of the atmosphere behind this…

April 10, 2020 Summary: It has been just over the past two hours that the northern limit of the precipitation shield has moved far enough to the south so that even the valley portion of Kern County is rain free.  Only a handful of times in my quarter century of weather forecasting has a storm…

April 9, 2020 Summary: Bakersfield has now recorded 2.25 inches of rain from this incredible storm.  That has pushed their seasonal total to 6.63 which is .16 above their entire average total and it continues to rain.  Doppler radar is quite telling at this hour.  A large batch of precipitation is now moving from north…

April 8, 2020 Summary: With the additional .91 of rain Bakersfield recorded overnight, their storm total is 1.60, meaning this storm dumped one-fourth of their entire annual average precipitation amount.  Bakersfield is actually above average now for precipitation.  Individual rain fall amounts at many other locations are in the rainfall discussion below. The center of…

April 7, 2020 Summary: Looking at satellite imagery this morning, the low was opening up into a considerably wider circulation pattern.  Embedded within the main area of low pressure are secondary circulation centers.  There will be somewhat of a lull in the shower activity today, although I wouldn’t rule out scattered showers and isolated thunderstorms…

April 6, 2020 Summary: A number of locations on the valley floor have already recorded more rain from this storm than they would normally receive in the entire month of April.  A few locations in Tulare County have eclipsed the one-inch mark.   A frontal system is stalled over the Kern County mountains and extreme…

April 5, 2020 Summary: A strong cold front is aligned from just south of Monterey northeastward through Stanislaus County to near Lake Tahoe.  Doppler radar is indicating heavy rain along this very slow moving front.  The surface front itself will slowly move down the valley today, probably not reaching Kern County  until late afternoon.  The…

April 4, 2020 Summary: Precipitation has spread as far south as Santa Rosa along the coast and is moving into the  northern Sacramento Valley.  The cloud canopy from this first system is currently near a Monterey/Merced line.  This first storm will affect mainly the northern half of California.  Some light precipitation may reach as far…