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November may have been dry, but are things about to change

Posted by: Maven on December 1, 2009 at 7:42 am

From redding.com, website of the Record Searchlight:

“The north state is slouching toward its fourth straight subpar water year after a chalk-dry November.

Rainfall intensity and frequency usually ramp up in November as great pools of maritime polar air swoop down from the Aleutian Islands over California. But not this year. A great umbrellalike bulge of warm, dry air welled up over the Golden State for much of November, sending Pacific storms into the Great Basin.

This ridge so weakened the few fronts that did manage to cross the coast they dropped only a few nickels and dimes worth of precipitation in the far northern Sacramento Valley.

Redding Municipal Airport recorded 0.67 inches of rain last month, or a mere 16 percent of the 4.03 inches that fall at that spot during an average November. The airport has picked up 2.78 inches of rain since the season began July 1. That’s just 40 percent of the 6.96 inches the airport usually receives by Dec. 1. … “


Read more from the Record Searchlight by clicking here.

Despite the bleak November, meteorologists are still predicting an above-normal winter, according to the North County Times:

“California can expect above-average precipitation this winter, according to a forecast released Monday by the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center.

If the forecast holds up, it will break a three-year dry spell in the drought-plagued state.

The forecast backs up tentative predictions by weather researchers in early November at a news conference in San Diego by the California Department of Water Resources.

However, wet weather is still just a prediction, so conservation will still be needed in arid Southern California, which is literally at the end of the pipeline from its main water sources, Northern California’s rivers and the Colorado River basin. … “

Read more from the North County Times by clicking here.

Is that the storm train on the horizon? Accu-Weather’s Western Weather Blog says change is on the horizon:

“The dry Fall in the Southwest have had more than a small number of people worrying about where El Nino was. I have been trying to calm those worries with several posting in the last few weeks. El Nino rainy seasons typically don’t start until at least December and sometimes not until late December. The first sign of a big change in the overall weather pattern in the Pacific is now appearing.

By all accounts and all models a large shift in the upper level pattern will take place late this week through next week in the central and eastern Pacific. In general what is expected to happen is that a high level block will set up in the Gulf of Alaska. This will then force the jet stream farther south than it has been, perhaps aimed squarely on California and other Southwest States. … “

Check out the weather charts & more at the Western Weather Blog by clicking here.

December 1, 2009 · Filed Under Drought, Weather & Snowpack

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