Posted on 01/15/2010 11:55:12 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
California will be hit hard by an onslaught of major storms next week. This is a big deal, folks. Something we haven't seen the likes of in quite some time.
Powerful ocean storms are going to play tag with tropical moisture all week long, and quite a bit of that moisture will be pumped into the West Coast. California will probably get the worst of it, but the storms will produce rain all the way to British Columbia.
Along the California coast and all windward-facing slopes, rainfall totals could easily exceed a half foot by the end of the week. That means serious flooding is likely, and there is a high probability of destructive mudslides.
Along the coast, storms will produce high winds and pounding waves that can cause significant damage to oceanside 
(Excerpt) Read more at accuweather.com ...
GLOBAL WARMING!
Arizona is supposed to get it next week and the week after. They have said anywhere between 1-5 inches of rain next week.
We’ll see.
Alert time ...the Burn areas will surely have problems based on this forecast.
Mud sinks slowly into the ground - a week, maybe two - and lubricates the fault where the two plates are stuck together.
Unstuck. Haiti 11
Coming next week
Disaster Zone - California
some of the local meteorologists are talking big numbers, big.
I was just going to post a thread about this. Below is an ominous outlook that was emailed to me:
ENSO 2010
Get ready. This is what the emergency response community is saying (courtesy of Ken Coale - Oceanographer, Moss Landing Marine Lab ):
Currently, the strong El Nino is reaching its peak in the Eastern Pacific, and now finally appears to be exerting an influence on our weather. The strong jet has been apparent for quite some time out over the open water, but the persistent block had prevented it from reaching the coast. Now that the block has dissolved completely, a 200+ kt jet is barreling towards us. Multiple large and powerful storm systems are expected to slam into CA from the west and northwest over the coming two weeks, all riding this extremely powerful jet stream directly into the state. The jet will itself provide tremendous dynamic lift, in addition to directing numerous disturbances right at the state and supplying them with an ample oceanic moisture source. The jet will be at quite a low latitude over much of the Pacific, so these storms will be quite cold, at least initially. Very heavy rainfall and strong to potentially very strong winds will impact the lower elevations beginning late Sunday and continuing through at least the following Sunday. This will be the case for the entire state, from (and south of) the Mexican border all the way up to Oregon. Above 3000-4000 feet, precipitation will be all snow, and since temperatures will be unusually cold for a precipitation event of this magnitude, a truly prodigious amount of snowfall is likely to occur in the mountains, possibly measured in the tens of feet in the Sierra after it’s all said and done. But there’s a big and rather threatening caveat to that (discussed below).Individual storm events are going to be hard to time for at least few more days, since this jet is just about as powerful as they come (on this planet, anyway). Between this Sunday and the following Sunday, I expect categorical statewide rainfall totals in excess of 3-4 inches. That is likely to be a huge underestimate for most areas. Much of NorCal is likely to see 5-10 inches in the lowlands, with 10-20 inches in orographically-favored areas. Most of SoCal will see 3-6 inches at lower elevations, with perhaps triple that amount in favored areas.
This is where things get even more interesting, though. The models are virtually unanimous in “reloading” the powerful jet stream and forming an additional persistent kink 2000-3000 miles to our southwest after next Sunday. This is a truly ominous pattern, because it implies the potential for a strong Pineapple-type connection to develop. Indeed, the 12z GFS now shows copious warm rains falling between days 12 and 16 across the entire state. Normally, such as scenario out beyond day seven would be dubious at best. Since the models are in such truly remarkable agreement, however, and because of the extremely high potential impact of such an event, it’s worth mentioning now. Since there will be a massive volume of freshly-fallen snow (even at relatively low elevations between 3000-5000 feet), even a moderately warm storm event would cause very serious flooding. This situation will have to monitored closely. Even if the tropical connection does not develop, expected rains in the coming 7-10 days will likely be sufficient to cause flooding in and of themselves (even in spite of dry antecedent conditions).
In addition to very heavy precipitation, powerful winds may result from very steep pressure gradients associated with the large and deep low pressure centers expect ed to begin approaching the coast by early next week. Though it’s not clear at the moment just how powerful these winds may be, there is certainly the potential for a widespread damaging wind event at some point, and the high Sierra peaks are likely to see gusts in the 100-200 mph range (since the 200kt jet at 200-300 mb will essentially run directly into the mountains at some point). The details of this will have to be hashed out as the event(s) draw closer.
In short, the next 2-3 weeks (at least) are likely to be more active across California than any other 2-3 week period in recent memory. The potential exists for a dangerous flood scenario to arise at some point during this interval, especially with the possibility of a heavy rain-on-snow event during late week 2. In some parts of Southern California, a whole season’s worth of rain could fall over the course of 5-10 days. This is likely to be a rather memorable event. Stay tuned.
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SAN DIEGO CA
1253 PM PST THU JAN 14 2010
BIG CHANGES IN THE WEATHER NEXT WEEK...
MAJOR CHANGES ARE EXPECTED IN THE SOUTHWESTERN CALIFORNIA WEATHER
AFTER THIS WEEKEND. A SERIES OF STORMS WILL BRING CLOUDS...
COOLING...WIND...AND PERIODS OF LOCALLY HEAVY RAIN NEXT WEEK WITH
SNOW AT THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS.
THERE IS STILL A LOT OF UNCERTAINTY ABOUT THE EXACT TIMING AND
RAINFALL AMOUNTS...BUT THESE STORMS HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO BE QUITE
VIGOROUS...AND BRING LARGE RAINFALL TOTALS TO THE LOWER ELEVATIONS
AND HEAVY SNOW TO THE MOUNTAINS.
THIS ALL WEEK LONG EVENT HAS THE POTENTIAL TO GENERATE RAINFALL OF 4
TO 8 INCHES NEAR THE COAST...TO 20 OR MORE INCHES ON THE COASTAL
MOUNTAIN SLOPES. TYPICALLY WETTER LOCATIONS ON THE COASTAL MOUNTAINS
SLOPES COULD RECEIVE 30 OR MORE INCHES OF RAINFALL. EVEN THE DESERT
LOCATIONS ARE LIKELY TO RECEIVE SEVERAL INCHES OF RAIN.
SNOW LEVELS WILL MOSTLY FLUCTUATE BETWEEN 5500 AND 6500 FEET WHICH
WOULD CONFINE HEAVY SNOW ACCUMULATIONS TO MAINLY THE HIGHER
ELEVATIONS IN THE SAN BERNARDINO AND SAN JACINTO MOUNTAINS. UP TO
AROUND 4 FEET OF SNOWFALL IS POSSIBLE AT THE HEAVIEST LOCATIONS.
IF RAIN DEVELOPS AS EXPECTED THEN THERE WILL BE A POTENTIAL
OF FLASH FLOODING...MUD AND DEBRIS FLOW...ESPECIALLY IN AND BELOW
RECENTLY BURNED AREAS. THE RAIN WILL MAKE ROADS SLICK AND TRAVEL
THROUGH THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS OF THE MOUNTAINS COULD BECOME
HAZARDOUS DUE TO SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW. HEAVY SNOW COULD ALSO CREATE
AN AVALANCHE THREAT FOR AREAS LOCATED BELOW STEEP SLOPES OF THE
HIGHER SAN BERNARDINO AND SAN JACINTO MOUNTAINS.
Not looking forward to it here in Santa Cruz.......
Gonna go out tomorrow and stock up on supplies. We could easily lose our road up here in the mountains.
Thanks for posting.
Here we go again. S-T-O-R=M=W-A-T-C-H!!!!
Who the heck was it that used to do that comedy routine where he pointed at the heavens and shouted in alarm, “Look Mabel! There’s little tiny drops of water coming out of the sky”?
Odumbo can’t wait, he’s got to stay out of DC......
We need it.
**********************************EXCERPT from post #7**************************************
We are gonna have trouble....no doubt about it!
Last night, our local Coachella Valley weather guy said we could be well over 3 inches next week....that hasn’t happened since the series of post-Christmas storms of ‘03 or ‘04.
I’m here in L.A. awaiting the big rains, and thinking I should have gotten that sorely needed new roof.
But.....I’m still ‘going Galt’ out here so will have to hope I have no roof leaks in this upcoming week of heavy rain.
Ping for rains
Well,...they can stop watering those Golf course for a few days...save that Colorado river water for us down here.
Eastern 2/3s of country had theirs, now is our turn.
Oh I love it when it rains, but I pray for those who live in the burn areas, its not gonna be pretty
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