As the weekend storm exits our area, drier, warmer weather is expected as a strong mid latitude ridge builds back into California through Friday morning. The upper ridge looks fairly dirty, so cloudiness associated with a storm track to the north of us, will come and go with time. Heights will be fairly high and so above normal temperatures can be expected most of this week.  Highs in Mammoth will be in the 40s through Tuesday then 50s Wednesday through Friday.  Night time lows will be in the teens and twenties……It will be windy Wednesday.

West Coast Storms:

Although the South Central Sierra will have a break from precipitation this week, it will be quit stormy in the pacific NW.  Another “AR” event is set to connect with the states of Oregon and Washington so it will be very wet up there. The source region of the tropical moisture reaches back to the Dateline and the ITCZ, so it will rain a lot up to our north. Although we will not get rain from that system, we will get a lot of high cloudiness along with wind….especially Wednesday. The major long wave that is involved in training the pacific NW moisture will shift east over the weekend and dampen as it runs into the west coast ridge. As the remains comes through California, the Central Sierra may get some scattered light precipitation along with wind and cooling Sunday.

Longer range:

I am beginning to see some signs that the winter pattern of the northerly displaced upper jet is beginning to break down. There appears to be more long wave Trofing in the medium to long-range in the Central G of AK and less high latitude ridging over or near the west coast. A couple of weeks more will tell more, but often times dry winter patterns begin to break down in late February and into March. This mornings day +8 GFS showed a long wave trof  between 145W and 150W. SEE: http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/cpc/cpc_NHEM_f192wbg.gif  This is still too far west as I would like to see it at 130 west but things are moving in the right direction. Additionally, I am seeing a weaker PV over Eastern Canada and much more progressive flow out over the Atlantic. So the wave length appears to be becoming more favorable for a progressive shift in the long wave trof from over the Central Pacific to the Eastern G of AK with time.  Additionally, the west coast ridge is forecasted to move over the Rockies where it belongs the next week.

Thus……A significant storm is expected about the middle of next week that could be a major cold type winter storm for the central west coast. I checked for verification using the Hovmoller theory for surface cyclo-genesis coming off Japan next weekend and it supports the propagation of energy through the west coast about Wednesday next week.

 

Dr Howard and the Dweebs…………………………..:-)