La Nina Takes Over.......

Models are struggling with the pattern. There is a lot going on and a lot of changes they need to catch onto. After several days of consistency with the storm track into Northern CA by the end of the week, the trend over the past 24 hours has been a stronger ridge off the coast pushing the storms just to our North. This would put us on the Southern edge with warmer temps and only light snowfall on the mountains and rain at lake level. We should begin to see warm air advection snowfall like we saw last week as the warmer air off the Pacific overrides the cold air now in place on Tuesday and Wednesday. Like the last time this type of snowfall is creating its own moisture so it's hard to predict amounts, but we could see several inches by wednesday up on the mountains.

Then the storm for Thursday moves in but like I said the trend right now is further North, so the amounts look more in the 3-6 inch range today. Then for the weekend we see the storm stay just to our North with maybe some light showers on the Southern edge. This is a flip from the past few days but all the models are on board this morning.

Then they show the ridge getting stronger next week, but watch the MJO because it is starting to strengthen and then forecast to move into the Western Pacific. That means I will not trust the models beyond next weekend because if the MJO stays on course we should see the storm door open sometime the following week with a series of big storms. Good News is that the NAO is still going positive and weakening the Greenland block. That will remove the jam in the flow and we should see the weather speed up and storms move more easily into the West Coast. The Pacific NW should get their typical La Nina pounding the second half of the month. We will just need the assistance of the MJO to get the jetstream down here. Blocking over Alaska may be replaced with a trough the second half of the month which means colder storms diving in but again how far South they come means a lot to us. Stay tuned.......BA