Tracking a big storm lineup this week,
the brunt of our next storm hitting
Monday into Tuesday with dangerous travel,
heavy rain and snow,
plus the opportunity for thunderstorms
and gusty winds in the valley.
We'll see some slightly better
conditions by Wednesday into Thursday,
but this is going to be a
rough start to the week.
Here's a look at some of the preliminary
snow totals that we're expecting,
with chains likely travel highly
discouraged in the Sierra,
anywhere from about 48 to 60 inches
of snow for some of the passes.
Along Major Sierra roads for the valley,
again preliminary amounts about
1/2 an inch to an inch by the
time we get to Wednesday morning.
With thunderstorms in the forecast,
travel delays,
and longer commutes as well,
it's going to be a slow start to
our Monday morning here and right on
through our Wednesday showers from
our weekend storm system pulling off,
we've had a lot of difficult
travel in the Sierra.
At times 80 has been shut down chains on Hwy.
50 that continues South of Hwy.
50 with areas of Snow.
All the way down to nearly Groveland,
Sonora and Arnold Miwok
village as well as Twain.
Harte's getting in on several
inches of new powder.
As far as our precip totals,
just a heads up on this one,
this is going to account for
mainly liquid precipitation.
So what we're seeing in places
like Placerville and Auburn that
did see a bit of a mix,
we're going to account for
about an inch or so of snow,
most of that melted and Placerville,
whereas Lake Tahoe closing in on over
3 inches of snow has been steady snow,
no rainfall.
There as far as the valley precipitation,
about 1/4 of an inch or less,
but we are going to get a lot
more in the forecast tonight.
Some clearing,
but here's what's on tap for tomorrow.
There's the big band of rain that's
going to start to press our way.
We're going to get through most of
the commute without heavy rainfall,
but that is not the case across
the Bay Area where the rain will
be starting up much earlier.
So along I-80,
you can see intense rainfall
occurring right around 9:00 AM.
Same along I-5 if you had a
little bit farther up.
Long high five,
we're going to be talking about snowfall
and then for that 8050 corridor
snow already starting up by 9:00 AM,
highway 508889 all the way through
the central Sierra along 365.
We'll see that snow developing
throughout the day and snow and
travel actually are going to be
in that high extreme impact zone.
Rain and wind more on the moderate level.
It's still going to have an
impact on our forecast,
but a bit little bit less of 1 than say
the snow and the travel in the Sierra
and This is why look at how this map.
Because all lit up multiple watches,
warnings and advisories that will
continue through the middle of our week.
The Sierra Hazardous driving conditions
include near whiteout conditions,
major travel delays, Rd.
closures possible.
We've seen that even this weekend
with a much less intense storm
chain controls almost a guarantee
and travel highly discouraged.
And that will be all the way down
the hill into some of the upper
foothills and the lower Sierra.
You can see our extreme impact
map includes much of the 8050
corridor north of 80 S of Hwy.
50 as well as across the coast.
Here where we've been seeing periods of
snowfall coming in across the coastal range,
our winter storm warning goes
into effect or I should say is
in effect and will continue and
through early Wednesday morning
with up to three feet of snow.
Now keep in mind with this map,
some of us will transition over to
a Blizzard warning by 4:00 AM on
Monday and that will continue through.
Wednesday morning with up to 7 feet of
new snow with wind gusts over 60 mph,
that's gonna mean nearly whiteout
conditions with travel nearly
impossible over the Sierra,
I would guarantee,
almost guaranteed,
that those roads are going to be
closed to periodically due to spinouts
and just impassable conditions.
OK,
so here's a look at our winter
weather advisory along I-5 that
includes areas of Redding and
Red Bluff with our snow level
at times down to about 500 feet.
So it's not necessarily right down to the.
Valley floor at some of
those lower elevations,
but certainly Upper Valley locations
will have that chance of some low
snow with up to about 5 inches
accumulating wind gusts up to 45 mph.
Difficult travel and again chains very
likely if you plan to head up the hill
to try to do some skiing or snowboarding.
I know it's very tempting
with all that fresh powder,
but an avalanche watch is in effect
and I did see over the course of
the weekend that they did have
some wind hold on a lot of the
resorts and some of those lifts.
So it's just it's going to be.
A situation where we just
need to wait it out.
This will continue through Wednesday morning.
We'll continue to watch this,
see if it it is elevated
into an avalanche warning,
but right now the high intensity
snowfall plus the rapid accumulation
will make large avalanches
possible through that time frame.
Back to the valley locations.
We get into this wind advisory that starts
up at 4:00 o'clock in the morning on Monday,
gusts from about 40 to 50 mph,
possible tree branches down,
which could take out some power lines
and possible localized power outages.
The winds really start to ramp up during
the morning commute as the main part
of that system starts to press our way.
It'll be peaking right around
10:11 o'clock in the morning,
especially for the valley,
and then we'll continue to see
the rain. Hours, but the wind
starts to back off ever so slightly.
It's not to say we won't
see those occasional gusts,
but just the strongest will be
tapering off at that point.
We've had a drawing out period,
so for a time it looked like things
just weren't going to get going again.
But as you can see by late last
week things really took a turn
for a much wetter outlook here.
We had almost an inch of rain
back on the 24th on that Friday
and then things were a little
bit lighter over the weekend,
but we have really turned the tables.
They're back to a wetter scenario and we
kind of need it at this point as well,
especially after 2 1/2 plus weeks
drawing out we are we we're starting
to see some of those numbers go
down throughout the state in
terms of our averages.
We were falling below average here
for Palm Springs, Redding, Eureka,
the rest of the state looking
really good with our numbers.
We're above average,
but February is one of our wettest months
out of the year followed by obviously March,
we start to see some of that.
And fall taper off as well
as in April and then by May,
June, July,
we're basically down to nothing
throughout the valley.
So this is our time,
this is our window of opportunity to
really get some of that rainfall coming in.
Looking at our reservoirs,
especially with some of the rainfall and
the snowpack that we have up in the Sierra,
there's still plenty of capacity
in places like Shasta, Oroville and
Folsom for all that runoff to occur.
We're roughly about 85 to over
100% of average.
It's just that if you go and you
look at any of the reservoirs,
they still look a little bit on the low side.
And I'll explain why that is in
just a minute.
First of all, we'll look at New Melones,
Don, Pedro and San Luis again,
all roughly about.
75 to over 100% of average,
but capacity for all the snow melt.
So that's where I want to head
next is the Sierra.
And as you can see when
we look at these numbers,
we really can't have those reservoirs
all the way to the top because all of
this snow is about to melt come the
dry season right around April 1st.
That's when we typically see some
of that snow starting to melt
off and filling the reservoirs.
And if you look at the April 1st numbers,
we're well over average,
we're 117% of average for the northern.
Sierra,
almost 150% of average for
the central Sierra,
southern Sierra at 175% roughly
for the southern Sierra from that
April 1st and for the statewide
average we're at 144% of average.
So if we didn't get any more snowfall,
we would have met where would what
we normally get for an entire
water year and it's still going to
be coming our way.
We are likely cooler in the next two
weeks and likely wetter as well.
So this is just the beginning
of kind of turning the tide.
Back to that wetter and colder outlook.
And we've already gotten the storm door
open and now that Monday through Wednesday,
storm comes ripping through
Northern California, just dumping a
tremendous amount of rain and snow.
And it's a cold one too.
We're going to stay well below
average for our temperatures.
That's going to bring that snow
line down to about 1000 feet.
Not anywhere near Folsom,
but it will be just up the hill here.
And that also means chain controls
go in very low on the hill,
slow going, and very likely those
roads will be shut down.
80 has been seeing a lot
more shutdowns and say 50.
But that's not to say if there's a really
bad accident or just a lot of spinouts,
the closed roads and really not
opening them up until they feel
that they can get enough traffic
moving through the hill safely,
alright.
The other thing that we're looking at is
the chance of thunderstorms for tomorrow.
Again, this is going to have a
lot of instability with it with
some of that cold air working in,
we get through.
The rain showers for tonight,
the snow on and off in the Sierra
until early tomorrow morning,
so there's really not much of an
opportunity to get up in this year
without having consistent snowfall.
We're right back at it by tomorrow.
We'll time this out once again.
Here we are,
11:00 o'clock the rain from
Yuba City through Sacramento,
Elk Grove almost in through
Stockton and Modesto along I-5 Hwy.
99 that will move off to the east
behind it with some instability,
chance of thunderstorms rolling through here,
and snow for this year.
It's gonna be pretty steady right through
our Tuesday and Wednesday forecast.
The valley sees a little bit
more of pockets of that dry air,
but that is not the case for this year.
It looks like it's going to be pretty
steady right on through Wednesday morning.
By Tuesday night,
the valley actually starts to
dry off and mostly lingers with
that storm system in the Sierra.
Total rainfall.
Again,
just looking at some more localized numbers,
we looked at the overall half an
inch to an inch and here we're
kind of breaking it down into
some of those city locations.
Stockton with about 3/4 of an inch of rain,
Modesto discharge of an inch,
Sacramento about an inch or so.
Same for Roseville, Yuba city.
We get into some of these areas that are
going to be the Upper Valley locations,
lower foothills and that's where
it's going to be, a rain snow mix.
So again,
this is just going to account for the
liquid precipitation that we'll see.
If we were to take that snow, melt it down,
that's about what we would see.
So as we look at the snowfall,
again, you're going to see some
areas that saw some rain totals.
As well as snow totals.
And that's just because that's gonna be
that line of where we see that mixed bag
of precipitation all the way through.
Sonora, Twain, Hart, Arnold, Pollock, Pines.
It's gonna be a steady snow emigrant gap
55 inches, Tahoe City 51 S, Lake Tahoe 43.
It's going to be great once all this clears
out, but it's going to take some time.
So if you're planning on doing any
skiing and snowboarding, Thursday,
Friday, look like great days to do.
So Wednesday in the afternoon actually if
you wanna head up into the high country,
it looks OK for that period as well.
Well, we get a brief break Thursday
and Friday is going to be our break
from this action and then we're right
back at it by the upcoming weekend
into the early part of next week.
That's why that long range outlook
is calling for likely colder and
wetter in our forecast.