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No drought relief on the horizon

Posted by: Maven on January 29, 2009 at 7:38 am

From the St. Helena Star:

It appears as though the last few days of January will have much in common with the first four weeks of the month. After a brief respite last week from the pitilessly dry regime that has plagued most of California this rainy season, high pressure has returned to reclaim its now customary position over Northern California resulting in another extended run of fair and mild weather for the Napa Valley.

Unfortunately, the North Bay found itself on the outside looking in during the most recent bout of inclement weather. A low pressure area featuring copious amounts of subtropical moisture rotated multiple waves of rain into the Golden State as it spun counterclockwise over the Pacific west of the Southern California coast.

These bands of rainfall, some of which brought heavy rain for a time, were quite narrow, and the rain-favored region was centered along a line that ran roughly southwest to northeast from Monterey County through the northernmost part of the San Joaquin Valley into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Rainfall amounts tapered off quickly the farther north and west of this line one moved. This was evident in the Napa Valley and its environs as places like Napa Airport and eastward into Solano County received from four-tenths to two-thirds of an inch of rain from the three-day event.

In St. Helena, the rain was more of a nuisance than a boon, receiving just 1/3 of an inch over the three-day event. More from the St. Helena Star by clicking here.

Is there rain on the horizon? Redding’s Record Searchlight has a long term forecast for Northern California:

Mid-range forecasts continue to suggest a definite cool-down from Tuesday on as a splitting trough (a big, sagging pouch of maritime Alaskan air) approaches the California coast.

These forecasts do not agree how the low pressure center at the core of this trough will track. We could get showers later Tuesday into Wednesday if the low winds up off the Mendocino County coast. We won’t get anything if the low stays farther southwest, as some forecasts suggest.

One model even ripples a more traditional trough with a cold front through Northern California Tuesday into Wednesday, which would mean a good old fashioned shot of precip (hard to recall how that works!).

Longer-range forecast consensus out through Feb. 12 suggests seasonably cool temperatures (upper-50s) with weak precipitation probabilities. There’s really nothing all that promising on the horizon as we continue to slip farther into the hole during what’s usually the wettest time of the year.

More from the Record Searchlight by clicking here.

Santa Ana winds expected to show up in Southern California for the next couple of days.

January 29, 2009 · Filed Under Drought, Weather & Snowpack

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