December 5,2014
Some parts of California are likely to get wet every day over the next 10 days as a train of storms will deliver what Accuweather calls “drenching rain” into Northern California through the middle of December..
“The weather pattern through the middle of the month has the potential to bring 6-12 inches of rain from northern California to western Washington state and yards of snow to the high country of the northern Sierra Nevada and Cascades.
The cumulative amount of rain and snow could impact the drought in a positive way with time.”
This last weeks series of storms helped northern California and southern California get a soaking but middle California got only a moderate to small amount of rain and ski resorts in the Central Sierra were disappointed with the warm temps that caused precip to fall as rain up to 8000 ft.
China Peak’s website said it all.”Unfortunately the snow level through most of the wettest part of this storm was very high, well above all the resorts in California, including China Peak, even though we have one of the highest base and peak elevations in the state.
As of this morning, snow is expected late next week, December 11-12, decent amount, cold, followed by cold.”
Water watchers like the state’s farmers will be cheered by the fact that for the next 10 days, the city of Redding near Shasta Reservoir has better than a 50% chance of rain every day (Accuweather) as a wet pattern helps fill this key storage unit as well as provide a wet blanket over most of Northern California.
Rainfall at Shasta Dam stands at about 13 inches as of today, well ahead of the past year’s anemic pace for this date. The lake has been drawn down over the past two fall months and only now appears to be heading higher every day in the past week as finally more water pours in than is going out. If the reservoir shows a 19 inch rainfall total by mid-December (adding about 6 inches) that would be more than half the amount of rain that fell all water year in 2013/14 totaling 33 inches.The average annual rainfall at the dam is around 65 inches – about double last years numbers.
Shasta reservoir has plenty of room to fill with water storage just over 1 million acre ft today.The dam holds 4.5 million acre ft.
With this next round of storms ”much less rain and high country snow are likely to fall farther south in California, there will be a few rounds of needed moisture.”say Accuweather.
“The storm from this past Tuesday and Wednesday was only the beginning of a pattern that will deliver moisture in the form of rain and high-country snow to the West Coast.
Much more rain on a gradual basis is needed to alleviate the extreme to exceptional drought conditions extending back several years, centered on California.”