WUWT contributor Dr. Ryan Maue writes on his Twitter feed:
Can’t ask for better setup for enormous rainfall totals over NorCal & now linto Bay Area in 5+ days
Looking at the model output below, I tend to agree, if the pattern holds. It sets up Northern California for the perfect orographic lifting enhancement in the Sierra Nevada mountain range that will not only provide a bounty of liquid precipitation, but a significant boost to the well below normal California snowpack.
Most or northern California will get some benefit from this “super soaker” storm:
The Quantitative Precipitation Forecasts show some parts of Northern Calfornia getting as much as 20″, along with many mountain areas getting 5″ or more.
How much will be snow? That’s anyone’s guess at this time, it depends entirely on how much air and moisture is advected into the low pressure system to collide with colder air.
We’ll know more as we get closer to the event.
Graphics courtesy of Dr. Ryan Maue and WeatherBell.com
Average is, of course, nowhere near capacity. Average rain and storage in California is below average (being the inverse of the Children in Lake Wobegon). I think we’re all hoping for one of those nice abnormal super soaker years to refill our stores before continuing along in our normal perpetual near drought condition.
James at 48-
Sorry, you’re right. I blame the lack of sleep. Most reservoirs are about 66%+ of average, not 100% which would be average. Ugh. My bad. Why don’t they have a color coded map of the reservoirs? That would help those having brain freezes.
You would think with the importance of water in California, we’d have better info graphics. Here’s the best I’ve been able to find so far, but it doesn’t autoupdate/indicate the current water levels, which is a shame. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California#mediaviewer/File:California_water_system.jpg
Is this what you want? http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/getResGraphsMain.action
This year’s crop of high school graduates will have never known or experienced global warming and yet it has been beat into their skulls for 12 years. The expectation is they will vote as influenced by that flawed education. They will, of course, and without having given the issues a critical thought.
It is called grooming and is a tenant of child abuse of any kind. Especially education.
California has gained a benefit from an extended drought as there is little lubricity in the rocks and fault lines, providing seismic stability for several years. An extended wet period can affect the friction co-efficient in certain earthquake prone areas as ground saturation occurs. The end of the drought could signal the beginning of earthquake season.
Ground water rarely reaches the focal areas of major tectonic boundary zone earthquakes and if it does, it is on time scales that make the amount of surface and near surface water irrelevant. And the forces involved are not greatly affected by the presence or absence of water. There are generally compressive components for most of our faults including the strike slip ones. This is a lot different from local issues due to fracking ala TX and OK.
What happened to that glacier that carved Yosemite Valley? Based on rock evidence, the ice was close to 6,000 feet thick in the Tuolumne River drainage. We weren’t having 100-degree summers in the Central Valley that’s for sure. Something changed, and more than once, to advance these huge ice sheets and glaciers, then retract them.
Point is, the earth has experienced massive changes in temperature over its estimated life of 4.5 billion years. The sun is 1.3 million times the size of earth, and it controls climates on all of its planets.
Looks like this “Pineapple Express” will not be as predicted. Moving more north and not 20 inches of rain – more like a couple inches for CA…
NWC is indicating rain will be predominantly North of Interstate 80. That means North of SF as well as North of Sacramento. So Lassen and Shasta areas will get the most moisture in the state and trailing off to the South. The Visual and Water Vapor images in the satellite images already support those ideas. I doubt we will receive much in either the Carson Valley or central Valley South of I80. I’d be glad if ma nature proves me wrong. So far the “River” appears to be a broadening expanse of moisture with low impact.