After several days of beautiful weather, big changes are coming to our weather pattern. Currently, as expected, retrogression of the Eastern Pacific High is in progress.  The first system will be headed in Monday AM with some snow showers and another one fast on its heals for late Monday night into Tuesday night.  The Tuesday system will bring very strong ENE winds to the sierra crest. An upper low will form rapidly over Nevada and move over the sierra crest  Northeast to  Southwest.  Gusts in the 150 to 160 range not out of the question as the jet touches down. This is a very similar scenario when a “Mono Wind Event” blew down thousands of trees just west of the sierra crest, from west of Mammoth Mt north to Tioga Pass.  This event may reach further north… Its important to note that damaging winds do not occur in the Town of Mammoth from this pattern as well as many lower elevation areas east of the crest.

Beyond the Mono Wind event, the whole idea of retrogression is that each successive storm drops south, further west with time, so that they will eventually have over water trajectory. Over water trajectory that benefits the central sierra is expected as early as the next Friday, with another one that develops further west the following Monday and another later during that last week of January. This pattern is not suggesting any “AR” type scenarios as the short waves travel mainly North to south with little fetch.

Our weather that has been very warm for this time of the year is going to get cold with highs lowering into the 30s. That’s a 20 to 30 degree drop. It appears that the cold weather will be here to stay, for at least a week once it sets in.

 

More Later……

 

Dr Howard and the Dweebs…………………….:-)