Christmas Eve:

QPF has been updated to reflect 12 to 24 inch amounts from this Powder Hound by Morning…

Very cold the next 2 days………….

Nice gift under the trees…..

Ho Ho Ho….

 

Some light snow possible Monday……………Then dry through the end of the year……………..

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Wednesday 12/23/19 – 8:30AM Update:

Latest QPF forecast for Yosemite is 1.00.

So on Mammoth Mt at 15:1 that is 15 inches

At 18:1 at 10,000 that is 18 inches…  We’ll see how it works out by Christmas morning…..

OutLook:

There are a couple of small weather systems that may bring a few inches of snow both Monday and again Wednesday. It then goes dry through the end of the year….

MJO and other curiosities…

  1. The SOI has been weakly positive or weakly negative for sometime now….
  2. The MJO is located crossing from phase 5 to phase 6 today.
    a. With the convective portion of the MJO envelope now moving into the Western Pacific…a more upper convergent pattern should emerge north of Australia, allowing the SOI to become negative again. This should provide for stronger westerlies along or near the equator.  So I expect the SOI to possibly turn strongly negative in the next week.
  3. As the MJO shifts further east through the western pacific….the PNA will become strongly positive providing ridging between the far Eastern Pacific to the Western Rockies then north into Canada. This should cut the precip off over the pacific NW and allow them to dry out.
  4. If the ECMWF is correct in progressing the MJO into Phase 8…high amplification of the western ridge will bring the first cold wave into the eastern sections of the country with the 1st good snow over much of  New England.  In that El Nino is strong and the enhanced subtropical jet is as well, I do not expect the cold to last long over the east as it will most likely get flushed out over the Atlantic.
  5. It is what happens next that is important to California. The Composites show that as the MJO progresses well east through Phase 8 that the EAJ extends east to the west coast again…this time under the block to the north. This will be the first opportunity to get an El Nino related storm track into the southern half of the state between the 6th and the 15th of January.

Dr Howard And the Dweebs………………:-)

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A nice day is expected Wednesday with gusty winds over the upper elevations. I expect the snow to return by Thursday morning with the winds ramping up again.

12+inches over the upper elevations is expected with 4 to 7 in town.  Christmas Day will be partly cloudy and cold with highs in the teens and some scattered light snow showers possible. I do not see any large storms on the horizon between this weekend and the New Year but there is the chance of some light snow early next week.

MJO: The MJO will be the big story that will really change the pattern over the next 2 weeks. As the inter seasonal system moves from Phase 6 to 8, precipitation will end in the pacific NW, shortly after the new year as a Mega Ridge Builds into the PNA sector. It will be what happens later that will be interesting, as the MJO moves from phase 8 to possibly phase 1.  This is where the Pineapple Express will often times set up.

 

More later……