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No beach day for California
What a contrast from Thanksgiving Day
It’s amazing how within a 2-week period Southern Californians can go from spending Thanksgiving Day on the beach and enjoying blazing sunshine with 70s and 80s and right now endure a commute from hell as rains hit the windshield, it’s cold, windy, gloomy and a flash flood risk is hoisted for the burn areas and winter storm warnings up for the mountains as a Pacific Sotm rolls in, Winter has arrived folks, I’m sorry for those of you who moved to this beautiful part of the world to enjoy sun, sand and sea..
GOING FROM WARM AND DRY TO COLD AND WET
As a series of Pacific lows aim at California and the current one now moving across Southern and Central California lighting up the radar as a large area of cloud rolls into the Southwestern USA, underneath this vast area of cloudiness, pockets of moderate to heavy rain showers are continueing to soak roads and the arid land of southern and central California, snarling traffic and whitening mountain roads above 1,500ft and in some places lower, major concerns grow over the burn areas from summer with particularly the region stripped by the Station Fire where it won’t take all that much rainfall to create debris flows and landslides which could take homes down along areas made vunerable by LA County’s largest blaze in history.
This system is expected to drop as much as anywhere from a quarter inch to two inches of rain across a broad area from the beaches to Pasadena and much higher amounts in south to southwest facing upslope areas where localized 4-6 inches amounts may fall, however, what may fall more in elevated upslope areas may be snow rather than rainfall and anywhere from 1,500 feet and higher may experience between 6-24 inches of snow. Winter Storm warnings have been issued for the Southern California mountains. Major passes along the Grapevine and I-15 passes like Cajun Pass and other desert passes may become dangerous to travel as this system kicks in and winds blow stronger with height but even windy conditions could be a factor across the urbanised LA basin but gusts to 50-60 mph could hit the High Desert around the Lancaster, Palmdale area. This week, we shall see this storm push east and another storm swing, making for a very non California type week and may even look and feel more like a typical week here in Scotland as highs aren’t going to even manage 60 degrees across LA, the high desert areas probably won’t see 50 degrees,
Las Vegas snow?
At the level of the Las Vegas Valley floor around 3,500ft, temperatures though falling below freezing at night, may see some flakes fly and even a covering between a trace to 1 inch, however precipitation will need to fall during the cooler overnight hours as daytime temperatures are expected to warm into the mid to upper 40s, too warm to support snow to the surface. This is a situation that may produce a brief flurry across the LV area or may bring a few inches, it depends on how much precipitation falls and more importantly, when.. As for the mountain resorts, 1-2 feet is likely and nearby Mount Charleston is expected to warm to only 22 today.
We must remember back to only last December when downtown Las Vegas recieved 3 inches and upwards of 6-8 inches across the Henderson suburb of the city. December snowfalls aren’t unheard of and seem to, in my opinion becoming more common these days.
METEOROLOGICAL DISCUSSION ON BLIZZARD POTENTIAL AS WELL AS CURRENT AND SHORT RANGE UNITED STATES PATTERN COMING UP…
Thanks for reading.
-Mark
If you have any questions please feel free to email me.
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