Weather It Is (The End Of Winter -- Objection!)

Good morning:

Yesterday's strong upper level trough combined with a Red-Sea Trough to produce a period of  moderate rain in the central mountains and some southern areas yesterday, as well as showers last night in many locations.

In the last blog, I pointed out that a strong ridge of high pressure would be building into the eastern Mediterranean.  I wondered if the lack of apparent cold air suggested that we might slide into March without a return of winter weather.  After all, in the year 2010,  the end of January was basically the end of winter, and it didn't really rain again until after the tragic Carmel wildfire in December. The same storm that fanned the flames of the fire also blew the tiles off our roof.

No sooner was the ink dry on my blog when a very informed reader wrote to vociferiously object.  He sent me to some rather useful links that provide a summary of CFS (Climate Forecast Systems) model data.

Here's one: http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/cfs-mon/2016020900/cfs-mon_01_z500a_me_1.png

another: http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/cfs-mon/2016020900/cfs-mon_01_apcpna_month_me_1.png

and one more: http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/cfs-mon/2016020900/cfs-mon_01_T2ma_me_1.png

suggesting that March will be more stormy, wetter, and cooler than normal.

As we gaze forward to the last week in February we do indeed see that our steadily warming temperatures will return to more winter-like values from about February 19th onwards.

Until then, after a chilly get go today the weather will simply be nice (sunny, warm, and dry).

Of course, everyone wants to know if it will snow again this year.  The long range ensemble indicates about a 20% chance of a strong storm at the end of the month.

But for now, it's only February 11th and we've got quite a way to go before then.

Barry Lynn