8:30 am – I currently have a mixture of sun, clouds, and thunder – only one, but loud! I got almost 3/4″ yesterday, and another .16″ this morning. We are at 1.30″ for the month, and 6.30″ for the year.
If Mike Morales is able to get any sun this am up his way in Carmel, he will be out grabbing some big waves shots for your viewing this afternoon. 33′ at Point Sur at 11 pm last night! I’ll also be updating this weather report as necessary, throughout the day.
8:30 am – It began at 3 am, soft, gentle, only s few sprinkles. By Dawn, it was only .04″. After 7 am, it picked up, but while still gentle, it was steady. It is up to .31″ so far. Nice. The reports I read indicated this would start this afternoon. Caught me, but I was ready anyway. Nice fire going … Started the back up genie for a couple hours to make sure I have power all day, and all but one of the dogs inside. Have unseen movies, but need more books for winter. Recommendations gladly accepted.
PNW to get hammered, and Northern Cali, too. Here on the Central Coast, we will be less so. This storm to last through Friday, with temps dropping, another one Sunday through Monday with temps continuing to drop and snow possible by Monday. And so it begins … The parade of winter storms under the direction of El Niño 2015-2016.
Daniel Swain, of Weather West, whose great blog is found here, has confirmed that this week El Niño is making its way into Northern California. He has this to say:
“First, I want to reassure everyone that reports of El Niño’s demise have been -greatly exaggerated-demonstrably false. Very much to the contrary, El Niño is presently maintaining its record-breaking peak intensity, and temperature anomalies in the key Niño 3.4 region of the tropical Pacific Ocean are higher on both a weekly and monthly basis than they have been at any time since at least the 1950s (surpassing even the 1982-1983 and 1997-1998 events). Clearly, an extremely strong El Niño remains deeply entrenched in the Pacific–and, as I’ll discuss shortly, California weather impacts are starting to emerge.”
Our local forecast is for rain to begin Thursday afternoon/evening and continue into Friday, with another storm possible on Sunday. Most of us have been getting ready for months. Now we will find out how ready we really are. I bought myself a radio/flashlight that has the Monterey Weather station on it that runs via solar power or hand crank. It can even charge my cell phone, if necessary! Extra wool socks and heavy leggings were tucked in my Amazon box, too (as well as some things for others).
5:30 pm – final tally – 4/10ths of an inch.
1:40 pm – rain has arrived. Gentle rain. 48 degrees outside, 65 in.
10:00 am – According to most of my weather sources, it is on the way and will arrive this afternoon, gracing us with moisture on and off most of the afternoon. As of yet, I haven’t found a decent radar pic, but will post if I do. Enjoy, and drive safely.
I added a new link for the wonderful non-profit, CPOA. I don’t know how they were overlooked. I’ve been a member since 1985. No organization opens their checkbook faster to our community when disaster strikes. Sorry for oversight.
from Accuweather via Mike Morales. 😅
5:00 pm – final report today, unless all hell breaks loose. .32″ rain, 38 degrees outside, 62 degrees inside. I watched the VHS of the news reports of Feb 1998 and the Cal Trans tape of the Duck Pond, 1993. Fascinating stuff. Rain fall totals in 1998 surpassed 1995 when the Carmel bridge went out, and the El Niño of 1982-1983. I spent several hours trying to digitalization these, but no luck, yet. Will try again after Thanksgiving. Didn’t get the soup made today, so gotta get on it tomorrow.
1:00 pm – it’s raining cats and dogs. Just .21″ so far, but it is still early.It is 47 degrees outside and 64 in. I finally figured out my new VHS/DVD recorder/converter. I am pretty savvy, but I swear, an Electrical Engineering degree, or IT degree would have been handy. I found a Cal Trans VHS of the Duck Pond taken in 1993 after it started moving – 22 years ago, and I get to save it for future road nuts! Someone had climbed up the hill and recorded all the cracks, following them down to the road, and the water fall coming off the mountain. Fascinating, if you are a geologist or road nut. Rock Knocker will be tickled on Thanksgiving. I will make him a DVD, and also make one for our current Supervisor Greg De Alba. He can get a close up look at what Mother Nature is capable of doing on his road! Next up, 1998 Storm reports from KION and KSBW. I hope to break my rule about uploading videos to my blog, and post a few minutes at a time, if I can figure that out!
At 8:00 am – it started drizzling, soft and gentle. It was 45 outside and 57 inside. I started a fire in one part of the house, and set up the propane heater in another. Trying to stay head of the cold. Will update as weather dictates. Stay safe and warm out there. As for me, I will be working on my butternut squash and apple soup for Thanksgiving. Also got my VHS to DVD converter yesterday, so hope to start converting the 1998 storm report news segments from VHS to DVD. Rock Bob recorded them for me in town in the way back times (17 years, actually.)
A COLD FRONT WILL SPREAD RAIN INTO THE NORTH BAY ON TUESDAY MORNING… THEN SOUTH ACROSS THE REMAINDER OF THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA ON TUESDAY AFTERNOON… AND FINALLY INTO THE MONTEREY BAY AREA BY LATE AFTERNOON. THERE IS EXPECTED TO BE A BREAK IN THE WET WEATHER FOR MUCH OF TUESDAY EVENING BEFORE A SECOND ROUND OF PRECIPITATION DEVELOPS LATE TUESDAY NIGHT INTO WEDNESDAY MORNING. SHOWERS WILL TAPER OFF FROM NORTH TO SOUTH ON WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON AND END BY WEDNESDAY EVENING.
RAINFALL TOTALS THROUGH WEDNESDAY ARE GENERALLY EXPECTED TO RANGE FROM ONE-QUARTER TO ONE-HALF INCH. LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS ARE POSSIBLE.
THIS WEATHER SYSTEM IS QUITE COLD AND SNOW LEVELS ARE EXPECTED TO LOWER TO 3000 FEET BY LATE TUESDAY AND AS LOW AS 2500 FEET BY LATE TUESDAY NIGHT AND WEDNESDAY MORNING. LIGHT SNOWFALL ACCUMULATION IS POSSIBLE ON AREA MOUNTAIN PEAKS ABOVE 3000 FEET… ESPECIALLY IN THE SANTA LUCIA MOUNTAINS OF MONTEREY COUNTY WERE A COUPLE OF INCHES OF SNOW MAY ACCUMULATE BY LATE WEDNESDAY.
NORTHWEST WINDS WILL INCREASE BEHIND THE COLD FRONT ON TUESDAY AFTERNOON AND CONTINUE LOCALLY GUSTY THROUGH TUESDAY EVENING. WINDS WILL BE STRONGEST NEAR THE COAST WHERE LOCAL WIND GUSTS OF UP TO 35 MPH ARE POSSIBLE TUESDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING.
Daniel Swain of Weather West has an excellent discussion of what is ahead for California this winter, including graphs and visuals of all sorts.
He says, among other things that this “top-tier” El Niño is no longer a prediction, but an organizational reality.
“In the lead-up to this pattern shift, Californians should probably expect highly variable conditions (and rather unreliable weather forecasts in the short term), as these kinds of transitions are notoriously hard to capture. But there is now pretty high confidence that a fairly dramatic change in the weather is on the horizon—most likely days or weeks, rather than months, in the future.”
Fascinating reading here:
This is what my SLO Co forecaster had to say:
“This cold front will be strengthened by upper-level winds and will move through the Central Coast Sunday morning with increasing clouds, southerly winds and moderate rain. Frontal passage will occur between 8 a.m. and 12 noon, followed by widely scattered rain showers, increasing northwesterly winds and cooler air temperatures Sunday afternoon and night.
Total rainfall amounts will range between a quarter and a half an inch for much of the Central Coast. This system will also produce snow for the Sierra Nevada above 4,000 feet.” He also hints at another system next weekend, the 21st.
Here are a couple rain prediction maps from NOAA:
Okay, found the best app of all – wunderground. It just about has it all, but one thing it has that none of the others do is the link to the live weather broadcasts from Monterey (or probably closest broadcast site). Comes in clear as a bell. During storms, I will try to leave it running in the background. When you try it, remember, it is not a constant broadcast, but scheduled, and I don’t know how often, yet. This is what my weather apps look like now.
I will be scouring the App Store for weather apps in the next few weeks, even though I have a good collection of weather links on my blog which I will be transitioning to in the next few days. In the mean time, I’m sure some of you have some even better weather apps than I do. How about sharing with each other? Here are my current ones, which helped tremendously planning a trip to Yosemite in between snow storms, which we managed! Snow chains for an RV are a bit much for these two old farts. Rock Knocker might disagree with me … Being a male Leo and all …
more El Niño Journal, 1998 soon.
