F-Chatters, When I first read this I figured there was a lot of hype...but I've consulted with some big-time weather hounds and it appears to be legit. I sincerely hope it's exaggerated, but for what it's worth: Clean your gutters, check your roof, prepare for power outages, store-up some food, cut back large branches/trees and get ready. It's not time to start putting animals in arcs, but the **** is about to get heavy (and wet & windy). The jet stream that is going to hit Southern California is as powerful as has ever been recorded on this planet before, over 230 mph. The jet is at an extremely unusually low altitude, not 30,000 to 60,000 feet, but coming as low as 8,000 feet. This jet will be traveling over the unusually warm El Nino waters of the eastern pacific, and will be carrying freakish amounts of energy and moisture. A huge series of storms is going to slam into Los Angeles and the surrounding areas just one after another for day after day for up to two weeks. The initial storms will be very cold, with snow levels as low as 3,000 feet. Heavy rain and snow will be hitting California from San Diego to Eureka. Next week, the driest places will see at least 3 inches of rain, the Los Angeles basin and northern parts of the county and Ventura will see 6 to 10 inches. The wettest areas and cells within the system will hit with up to 20 inches of rain. Snowfall in the Sierras will be measured in the TENS of feet. Powerful winds will be associated with this storm--like a powerful Santa Ana but blowing in the opposite direction, west to east. Gusts up to 80 mph are forecast. But it gets worse. For the first time that I'm aware of, ALL of the various models are in agreement about the second week of the storm. Normally, beyond a week, the models diverge. But due to the extreme strength of the weather producing factors, this time all of the models produce the same results for the 8-14 day period. For the week of the 24th, we will be hit with a powerful and WARM series of storms, as strong as any we've seen. This heavy warm rainfall will fall onto the newly laid snowpack and what will be totally saturated ground, especially in the burn areas of LA and will produce tremendous melting and runoff, and the potential for record flooding. Due to the low altitude of the jet stream, 200+ mph winds will slam directly into the Sierras, producing tornado strength winds over a 200 mile wide front. DON'T head to Mammoth for skiing when you hear about the huge snow fall in the first week. Planes and helicopters are migrating out of the coastal bases and into the interior bases of Arizona and Nevada. They're taking this very seriously. A friend of Scott's is a Navy weather forecaster and he told Scott that the military is moving assets east out of the way ahead of this storm. This may sound alarmist, but websites I check related to weather modeling are using the word "Biblical" for this system. If you can work from home or commute by train, please plan on doing so. The LA freeway system is going to be a mess for the next week or two Currently, the strong El Nino is reaching its peak in the Eastern Pacific, and now finally appears to be exerting an influence on our weather. The strong jet has been apparent for quite some time out over the open water, but the persistent block had prevented it from reaching the coast. Now that the block has dissolved completely, a 200+ kt jet is barreling towards us. Multiple large and powerful storm systems are expected to slam into CA from the west and northwest over the coming two weeks, all riding this extremely powerful jet stream directly into the state. The jet will itself provide tremendous dynamic lift, in addition to directing numerous disturbances right at the state and supplying them with an ample oceanic moisture source. The jet will be at quite a low latitude over much of the Pacific, so these storms will be quite cold, at least initially. Very heavy rainfall and strong to potentially very strong winds will impact the lower elevations beginning late Sunday and continuing through at least the following Sunday. This will be the case for the entire state, from (and south of) the Mexican border all the way up to Oregon. Above 3000-4000 feet, precipitation will be all snow, and since temperatures will be unusually cold for a precipitation event of this magnitude, a truly prodigious amount of snowfall is likely to occur in the mountains, possibly measured in the tens of feet in the Sierra after it's all said and done. But there's a big and rather threatening caveat to that (discussed below). Individual storm events are going to be hard to time for at least few more days, since this jet is just about as powerful as they come (on this planet, anyway). Between this Sunday and the following Sunday, I expect categorical statewide rainfall totals in excess of 3-4 inches. That is likely to be a huge underestimate for most areas. Much of NorCal is likely to see 5-10 inches in the lowlands, with 10-20 inches in orographically-favored areas. Most of SoCal will see 3-6 inches at lower elevations, with perhaps triple that amount in favored areas. This is where things get even more interesting, though. The models are virtually unanimous in "reloading" the powerful jet stream and forming an additional persistent kink 2000-3000 miles to our southwest after next Sunday. This is a truly ominous pattern, because it implies the potential for a strong Pineapple-type connection to develop. Indeed, the 12z GFS now shows copious warm rains falling between days 12 and 16 across the entire state. Normally, such as scenario out beyond day seven would be dubious at best. Since the models are in such truly remarkable agreement, however, and because of the extremely high potential impact of such an event, it's worth mentioning now. Since there will be a massive volume of freshly-fallen snow (even at relatively low elevations between 3000-5000 feet), even a moderately warm storm event would cause very serious flooding. This situation will have to be monitored closely. Even if the tropical connection does not develop, expected rains in the coming 7-10 days will likely be sufficient to cause flooding in and of themselves (even in spite of dry antecedent conditions). In addition to very heavy precipitation, powerful winds may result from very steep pressure gradients associated with the large and deep low pressure centers expect ed to begin approaching the coast by early next week. Though it's not clear at the moment just how powerful these winds may be, there is certainly the potential for a widespread damaging wind event at some point, and the high Sierra peaks are likely to see gusts in the 100-200 mph range (since the 200kt jet at 200-300 mb will essentially run directly into the mountains at some point). The details of this will have to be hashed out as the event(s) draw closer. In short, the next 2-3 weeks (at least) are likely to be more active across California than any other 2-3 week period in recent memory. The potential exists for a dangerous flood scenario to arise at some point during this interval, especially with the possibility of a heavy rain-on-snow event during late week 2. In some parts of Southern California, a whole season's worth of rain could fall over the course of 5-10 days. This is likely to be a rather memorable event. Stay tuned... Samuel Y. Johnson Western Coastal and Marine Geology U.S. Geological Survey Pacific Science Center
I didn't know it was going to be so bad. Thanks for the heads up Steve. I actually didn't even pay much attention to it on the news (I hardly watch it anyway)
For anyone who wants to double-check what the weather nerds are saying: http://www.easternuswx.com/bb/index.php?showtopic=219093&st=120 Thanks for bringing this to our attention Steve!
Wowza. Supersized Pineapple Express comin' thru. Sad to say, no matter what John Q Public does, LA County will once again prove infamous for it's annual day-late storm drain cleanup.
Hmmm. Weather channel 10-day forecast says next week should be pretty nice, with only a slight chance of showers on the 26th.
I think the storm you describe is what's actually occurring this week. Weather Channel & Weather.com describe your post for this week, but show a pretty nice week of 1/24.
Before posting I had double-checked the info....ya never know when some kind of hype-hoax based on fears comes at ya. My uber-nerd sources seem to feel it's legit, one of them even called the director who issued that info to confirm it....but all the info is still subject to interpretation and conjecture. You never know, some of these things lose tremendous energy once the hit land. The way I see it, it's never wasted time clearing rain-gutters and shoring up both supplies and the house for what may come. I don't mean to sound like a panic-monger but let's face it, the recent quake in Haiti and our typical 20-year cycle makes us realize we're 16 years in from the Northridge quake...or 80% in. Today I drove from Westlake back to Woodland Hills and it was just pouring rain. Trees were blowing, limbs fallen on streets, etc. The freeway was plain scary, lots of water and limited visibility. Happy to report no accidents...everyone was taking it easy. Weather reports show clearing over the weekend but showers/storm returning next week...maybe that's the big one or perhaps we're experiencing that now. One thing for sure, this really SHOULD help offset our drought a bit and perhaps we'll see a miracle and Mono lake might return?
Probably have surf warnings- not due to size - rather - nasty runoff. Don't want that in non-healed cuts or scrapes, let alone oh, ears or nostrils or backwash, unless you like freaking out otolaryngologists [don't ask me how I know].
Sorry guys, but that Samuel guy is way over the top.... The models I look at don't even show 1/4 of those things... Done!
I have lived here my whole life and have seen this before. It's always the first one through that catches everyone by surprise and wreaks havoc. Then the media creates a bunch of hoopla around the next one, even stationing reporters all the way up to SLO on "Storm watch" but they're never nearly as bad. So far, this group of systems has dropped some significant rain but, like I said, we need it. I hope the snow pack in the Rockies increases for Lake Mead's sake. Image Unavailable, Please Login
really scarey when I live in the burn areas but sounds like this week being described. next week looks clear.
Freaked me out a bit too, but with all the catastrophes in the world, it seemed plausible. Heck, I even charged the battery on the boat and it's sitting across the street on a trailer. Seems like these guys occasionally prognosticate in grandure, betting that if it hits they'll be crowned the new weather guru. Nobody remembers when they're wrong, but if they hit it right they get an agent and a $eat at the network$. I've drained quite a bit out of the pool and even found a few plugged downspouts where the wind blew debris into recently cleared gutters. Fortunately the 'onslaught' is coming in waves and giving us breaks...with luck this won't overwhelm our drain system and give the hillsides time to drain. Come Spring we'll see some serious green! An hour ago I drove by a wash...OMG, it's a HUGE amount of water flowing at a very fast rate; who needs to visit Grand Rapids when we have the L.A. Basin....sure looks like a fun ride until you hit the end.
I drove through zero visibility and rain so hard on the 5 in Norwalk, it felt like hail. So bad that CHP came out and stopped traffic because it was so awful.