NOAA: “How Current & Forecast Warmth Will Effect California Snowpack:”

SnowBrains | | WeatherWeather
image: noaa, today
image: noaa, today

“How will the warm weather this week affect the snow pack? The main impact to high elevation snow will be to make it denser, with little change to the amount of water contained within.” – NOAA Sacramento, CA today

Thanks for the heads up, NOAA.

Record heat and sunny skies are forecast in California through at least February 16th due to a blocking high pressure ridge that has set up over California.

"Ridge is still parked over the West Coast, bringing well-above average temps & dry conditions to California." - NOAA, today
“Ridge is still parked over the West Coast, bringing well-above average temps & dry conditions to California.” – NOAA, today

“El Nada” has returned to California…

But don’t worry, NOAA says that El Nino usually comes with a dry spell.

"A frequent question we've been hearing lately: "Is it unusual to go through a dry spell during an El Niño winter?" As it turns out, it's not unusual at all! Most of the prior strong El Niño winters have had substantial dry stretches. These values were taken at Sacramento." - NOAA, today
“A frequent question we’ve been hearing lately: “Is it unusual to go through a dry spell during an El Niño winter?”
As it turns out, it’s not unusual at all! Most of the prior strong El Niño winters have had substantial dry stretches. These values were taken at Sacramento.” – NOAA, today

The good news is that back in 2010/11, during the ferocious La Nina that dropped record snow in Tahoe including 811″ at Squaw Valley, USA, California experienced 6 weeks of no snow at all from Jan. 1st – Feb. 15th.

Other good news is that NOAA thinks the snowpack will hold up fine.

“Don’t worry about the snowpack though! Most of it will still be there when temperatures trend back colder toward the middle/latter half of the month. Warm periods like this one are not that unusual for the Sierra and Great Basin” –  NOAA Reno, NV on Feb. 6th

Hopefully, we’re just in a bit of a holding pattern before El Nino comes back and unleashes fury on CA!

Fortunately, the CA snowpack was measured at 114% of average on February 2nd and 5 CA ski resorts have seen over 300″ of snowfall this winter and Lake Tahoe has risen 8″ and Lake Folsom is nearly at legal capacity.

"El Nino is not a storm system, but rather the above average sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Though we have a ridge of high pressure in control of our weather this week, we can still see clearly see the above average sea surface temperatures in the latest sea surface temperature anomaly map. Remember: weather ≠ climate." - NOAA, today
“El Nino is not a storm system, but rather the above average sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Though we have a ridge of high pressure in control of our weather this week, we can still see clearly see the above average sea surface temperatures in the latest sea surface temperature anomaly map. Remember: weather ≠ climate.” – NOAA, today
"Potentially more maximum temperatures to be broken today across interior northern California." - NOAA, today
“Potentially more maximum temperatures to be broken today across interior northern California.” – NOAA, today

 

Posted by SnowBrains |

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One thought on “NOAA: “How Current & Forecast Warmth Will Effect California Snowpack:””

  1. Watch the usual ignoramuses say this is because of man-made “climate change” … hence we need more government action to stop it. The entire “climate change” movement is the biggest scientific fraud in history. Over the past 10k years CO2 levels do not in any way correspond with global temps. Further, those with financial vested interests in seeing this fraud perpetrated further have manipulated the temp data to make the past look cooler … on order to make the present look hotter.

    Why? To increase government’s power over the individual and his money.

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