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| Once again, they're cleaning up the Pacific Coast Highway after another round of mud slides and debris flows. More problems like this are likely over the next few days as the rains continue. |
California is really feeling the effects already.
The latest parade of storm just started hitting California, and it's a mess out there already. The first storm hit Saturday, and another one hit Monday. New storms are forecast for Tuesday, with an even bigger one coming along later Wednesday and Thursday.
Flooding, mudslides, debris flows, high winds and heavy upper elevation snow are all creating headaches in the Golden State, although all this precipitation will come in handy for water use this comign summer.
Flooding, mudslides, debris flows, high winds and heavy upper elevation snow are all creating headaches in the Golden State, although all this precipitation will come in handy for water use this comign summer.
As of Monday evening, there were mandatory evacuations from areas near where large wildfires burned in 2018.
There's nothing left to keep soil in place in these areas, so mud, rocks and debris flows are a big risk as the heavy rains take hold. Part of the Pacific Coast Highway was again shut down Sunday due to mudslides, just like it was around New Year's Day.
That's near the site of the massive Woosely Fire in November. People living in that area were told to be ready to evacuate at a moment's notice, NBC 4 in Los Angeles reported. Elderly residents, people with mobillity problems, those with medical needs and other vulnerable people were urged to get out of the area Monday, before trouble arises.
In higher elevations, I-5 through the Grapevine area was closed by snow and numerous cars and trucks were trapped in that area on Monday. Further north, Interstate 80 through the Sierra Nevada mountains was closed for a time because of deep snow. At Mammoth Mountain, 4.5 feet of snow piled up.
High wind watches and warnings were up for parts of southern California, and in the north, including the San Francisco Bay area.
The good news is that the storms will bring several feet of snow to the Sierra Nevada mountains. That's California's water storage for the dry summer and early autumn. The Weather Channel notes that as of Jan 12, the snowpack was at least 90 percent of normal for the date, which isn't bad. This parade of storms could easily bring the snow cover above average.
STORMS HEAD EAST
The storminess from California is heading east, and some of this will affect us here in Vermont. The details are getting a little better as to what is expected to happen, but question marks remain.
It still looks like a small storm will come by later Thursday night into Friday. Early guesses are this will only bring us perhaps one to three inches of fluff, with maybe a bit more than that in some of the mountains.
A larger storm is still expected to hit the East Coast by later Saturday and Sunday. Again, forecasts could change dramatically, but it looks like it'll be all snow for Vermont.
How much is a huge question. It depends on the track. If it comes fairly close, say going northeastward right along or just inland fron the New England coast, we'll get quite a bit - six inches or more.
If the storm tracks further east, amounts would be less, especially to the north and west.
First guesses are this will be a cold storm. More often than not, it gets relatively mild in a midwinter Vermont snowfall. Temperatures usually rise into the 20s during such a storm.
However, temperatures could stay in the single numbers to low teens as it snows Sunday.
Of greater importance is a very nasty weather pattern that's developing that looks like it would bring repeated blasts of intense Arctic air to us after the Sunday storm and continuing into early February.
These might not be the typical few degrees below zero at night types of things that weve gotten over the past week. These Arctic blasts have the potential at least to drop us into 20s below at night and keep readings subzero during the day. Really bad wind chills would accompany these frigid blasts as well.
How bad these outbreaks get depend upon where they cross the Canadian border into the United States. If they come in via the northern Great Plains, they might not be as bad because the air would modify some before it gets here.
If the Arctic air makes a beeline from the North Pole straight down onto northern New England, then it will be particularly bad.
Since that weather pattern is a week or more away, we'll have to wait and see how bad it gets.
The storminess from California is heading east, and some of this will affect us here in Vermont. The details are getting a little better as to what is expected to happen, but question marks remain.
It still looks like a small storm will come by later Thursday night into Friday. Early guesses are this will only bring us perhaps one to three inches of fluff, with maybe a bit more than that in some of the mountains.
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| Six to ten day outlooks shows widespread colder than normal temperatures (in blue) coming up for late January. |
A larger storm is still expected to hit the East Coast by later Saturday and Sunday. Again, forecasts could change dramatically, but it looks like it'll be all snow for Vermont.
How much is a huge question. It depends on the track. If it comes fairly close, say going northeastward right along or just inland fron the New England coast, we'll get quite a bit - six inches or more.
If the storm tracks further east, amounts would be less, especially to the north and west.
First guesses are this will be a cold storm. More often than not, it gets relatively mild in a midwinter Vermont snowfall. Temperatures usually rise into the 20s during such a storm.
However, temperatures could stay in the single numbers to low teens as it snows Sunday.
Of greater importance is a very nasty weather pattern that's developing that looks like it would bring repeated blasts of intense Arctic air to us after the Sunday storm and continuing into early February.
These might not be the typical few degrees below zero at night types of things that weve gotten over the past week. These Arctic blasts have the potential at least to drop us into 20s below at night and keep readings subzero during the day. Really bad wind chills would accompany these frigid blasts as well.
How bad these outbreaks get depend upon where they cross the Canadian border into the United States. If they come in via the northern Great Plains, they might not be as bad because the air would modify some before it gets here.
If the Arctic air makes a beeline from the North Pole straight down onto northern New England, then it will be particularly bad.
Since that weather pattern is a week or more away, we'll have to wait and see how bad it gets.
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