Midweek Clouds & Weekend Cooldown

Midweek Clouds:

I have been mentioning a weak system that will mainly move through SoCal Wed-Thu, keeping the precipitation to our south, but the trends have been a bit farther north over the last two days, and we will see some clouds.

There isn’t much precipitation with this system, and it should stay to our south as we have been expecting. The clouds will help to keep high temperatures a bit cooler, but still into the 40s. I haven’t spent much time talking about this system, as we will continue our dry pattern.

Weekend Cooldown:

The latest forecast model runs have been trending back towards the idea of the weekend trough digging south into the West, digging a bit farther West, with the Sierra on the western edge.

That is still a dry pattern, but we are back to forecasts from several days ago that showed high temperatures dropping into the 30s for the weekend. Saturday should be the coldest day, and then starting to warm back into the 40s for the lower elevations on Sunday.

Continued Dry Pattern:

High pressure builds back in for early next week with partly-mostly sunny days expected through Tuesday – Wednesday, and highs into the 40s.

A Chance for Weak Systems:

Not much has changed, looking at the long-range forecast. The strengthening and extension of the Pacific jet stream towards the West Coast, along with a trough/lower heights in the eastern Pacific trying to push close to the West Coast between the 29th – 2nd, is still expected.

Storms will try to push into the backside of the high-pressure ridge over the West, but will weaken with little success as the jet and trough are still forecast to be a bit too far west. It’s what we call a “dirty ridge” sometimes, as we can get some clouds and showers, but no significant precipitation or snow.

We’ll continue to watch the trends as there is still time for the forecast to shift a bit and a storm to have a better chance to bring us a bit more precipitation and snow to the mountain, but still not looking like much as of Wednesday morning.

Long-Range Outlook:

Beyond the 2nd-3rd, the long-range ensemble mean models continue to show the trough retreating away from the West Coast, and high pressure becoming more established over the West Coast. That is obviously not good, as it would bring us an even drier pattern, with no chance of precipitation. It’s possible that pattern could last into the 2nd week of February…

The longer range models, like the European Weeklies, continue to show us shifting towards a negative PNA/West Coast trough pattern, possibly opening the storm door, around mid-February. That may line up with the active phase of the MJO finally moving through the Indian Ocean. The 3rd week of February is the soonest that I see them show an average to above-average precipitation week.

For now, we’ll keep an eye on the 5-day period near the end of the month for some precipitation, and hope that storms return sooner than currently forecast.

BA