Category: Central Coast

Forecasters are predicting a strong atmospheric river storm to hit the Central Coast, and much of middle California and the Bay Area around the first week of February. The strong El Niño storm now, a little over a week away, could bring over 6 inches of rain over several days in San Luis Obispo County and heavy snow to the Tahoe region. The storm could be reminiscent of last year’s heavy precipitation events that fell in short periods. This week the San Diego area was hit by flash flooding that carried away cars on January 22.
These types of storms are possible with the strength of the jet stream, pushing the persistent highs of our coast as far down as Baja and allowing the storms to enter California instead of being shunted up to the Pacific Northwest.

Maps below show total rainfall as of Saturday, February 3 and the second map showing rain hitting the West Coast on February 4

Snow finally hitting the Sierra

-January 12,2024-

Don’t panic about the dry start to winter just yet. After last year’s incredibly wet rain and snow season, you’ve got to admit that so far, it’s been a disappointing start to 2024.

The deluge last year had huge impacts.California had record precipitation in 2022-23, with 31 atmospheric rivers helping to recreate Tulare Lake in Kings County. Statewide precipitation was 140 percent of normal, and the Sierra snowpack was over 200 percent of normal in April 2023. By some estimates, over a million acres of farmland were not planted in 2023 due to flooded land.

But so far this water year, a persistent high off the California coast is pushing storms well to our north re-creating fears of another drought year despite predictions of a strong El Niño effect in 2023/24.

Looking at the latest statistics, the Central Coast and generally the entire coast of California have seen closer to average rainfall compared to much of the rest of the state, including the Sierra where snowpack has been slow to build.

In fact the Central Coast stands at a respectable 83% of average as of January 10 says the California Department of Water Resources.Their precip map shows widespread green along the coast compared to red (20 to 40 % of average) along the Sierra crest.

But even in the Tahoe region for example, precip and snow numbers are picking up as of mid-January according to the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab at Donner Pass. Today’s reading shows 27 inch of snow falling in the past 7 days with a water year accumulation of almost 71 inches compared to 118 inches- a 1991-2020 median number for this date.

Rain and snow accumulation is 71% of the average says the snow lab. Predictions of a cold and heavy snowstorm this weekend should help.

NWS Sacramento says to expect heavy snow in the mountains Friday night through Sunday morning. Snow-covered roads, reduced visibility, travel delays, chain controls and road closures are all possible.1-2 feet of snow above 4500 feet in the Warning area and 4-8 inches above 3000 feet in the Advisory area. Snow levels of 2500-3500 Friday PM, rising to 4000-6000 
by Saturday.

Good snowfall is expected in the south valley mountains as well, says the National Weather Service Hanford with 12 to 18 inches of snow expected. Area ski resorts like China Peak and Mammoth say they expect a good build to their snow trails which have been in some cases, thin to date.

Sequoia accommodations closed

Concerned about the backlog of facility repairs, and the prospect of more snow, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks have closed all their overnight accommodations and most of their visitor services until mid to late March although you can still visit the majestic big trees.

In Yosemite expect snow accumulation to top 23 inches this weekend. Here is a recent Yosemite Falls WebCam snapshot that will make you want to bundle up.
Thanks to Migration News for some info in is report

-December 18,2023-

If you got to have a war, make it a gas war.And make it  happen, in all places, in high-priced San Luis Obispo in Morro Bay.That’s where motorists are being pleasantly surprised at one corner in this seaside town where’re three gas stations face-off every day. Now regular is selling for as as low as $3.73 a gallon The drop in recent months is substantial with  the California average at $6.18 October 1. Oil analyst Tom Kloza says nationwide the median gas price gas is $2.89. Over 100,000 locations in the country have gasoline for less than $3/gallon he adds.

-December 14,2023-

Civil Engineering Online

Coastal desalination facilities have long been viewed by some as a way for California to solve its water woes, but such technology has sparked significant controversy over the years because of its high costs, environmental impacts, and intensive energy requirements.

However, new rapidly deployable technologies that aim to treat seawater in the ocean and then pump it onshore are undergoing testing in the Golden State.

Such offshore approaches offer potential solutions to address California’s critical water shortages while reducing the downsides of traditional onshore desalination.

Driven by drought

The Las Virgenes Municipal Water District is in Southern California, but the drinking water it provides to more than 75,000 residents in the affluent cities of Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Hidden Hills, Westlake Village, and unincorporated areas of western Los Angeles County originates in Northern California.

That water is collected and conveyed southward to the LVMWD and numerous other Southern California water providers by the State Water Project, the massive water storage and delivery system owned and operated by the California Department of Water Resources.

“We’re 100% reliant on imported water from the State Water Project,” says Michael McNutt, the public affairs and communications manager for the LVMWD. This reliance on a single source is becoming riskier due to the globe’s changing climate. “One of the issues that we’re seeing is that climate change impacts are creating erratic weather patterns, where we can no longer rely on a reliable water supply every winter coming from the Northern Sierras,” McNutt says.

In fact, drought conditions in early 2022 prompted the LVMWD to take drastic action to ensure it maintained adequate water supplies. The district installed flow restrictors on the water meters of customers who refused to comply with water conservation requirements.

“We were the only water agency in the state that had a flow restriction program,” McNutt says. “The reason for that is because we didn’t know, at one point in time, if we were going to have enough water for people to use inside (their homes), let alone for outdoor irrigation purposes,” he says. “We were backed into a corner. We had to figure out a way to curb water usage because quite literally every drop counted.”

Fortunately, drought conditions lifted in 2023 throughout California following a series of massive storms. But the LVMWD remains vigilant in its quest to diversify its water supplies.

For example, the district has partnered with the Triunfo Water and Sanitation District to develop the Pure Water Project, an advanced wastewater reclamation facility that will provide purified water for indirect potable reuse. The agencies are operating a demonstration facility to pilot the concept.

Expected to come online in 2028, the full-scale facility will meet about 30% of the LVMWD’s water needs, McNutt says. “What that’s going to do is obviously minimize our reliance on the 100% imported water scenario,” he notes.

Deep water desalination

To be anchored to the seafloor at depths of 1,200 ft or more, OceanWell’s modular units rely on the ocean’s hydrostatic pressure to provide the feed pressure for the reverse-osmosis treatment process. (Image courtesy of OceanWell)

OceanWell modular unit. (Image courtesy of OceanWell)
The LVMWD is not stopping there, having pledged to investigate seawater desalination as another option for decreasing the district’s dependence on imported water. “We had made promises to our community and to elected officials,” McNutt says.

Although inland, the district’s service area is a mere 10 mi or so from the Pacific Ocean. But traditional coastal desalination facilities did not appeal to the LVMWD because of “our commitment to sustainability and environmental benefits,” McNutt says.

For this reason, the district turned to OceanWell, a company developing a novel approach to desalination that operates offshore in deep water to take advantage of certain properties associated with that environment.

“We’re essentially moving a desalination plant from land and putting it underwater,” says Michael Porter, Ph.D., the chief technology officer for OceanWell. “This hasn’t been done in the past, mainly because of the difficulty of working in offshore environments,” Porter says.

However, technological advancements, primarily in the field of subsea exploration for oil and natural gas, have made seafloor desalination a possibility, Porter says. “There’s been a lot of innovations in the last several decades on subsea technologies, and we are leveraging a lot of the know-how that’s coming out of those industries and applying it to our industry.”

Offshore advantages

To be anchored to the seafloor at depths of 1,200 ft or more, OceanWell’s modular units, collectively known as a “water farm,” desalinate seawater by means of reverse-osmosis membranes. Because they rely on the ocean’s hydrostatic pressure to provide the feed pressure for the RO process, the units are expected to conduct desalination using as much as 40% less energy than that of traditional onshore RO facilities, Porter says.

After passing through the RO membranes, the treated water is pumped to shore through a pipeline. Meanwhile, the reject stream from the RO process discharges through an outfall at the top of the unit.

Because OceanWell’s treatment units require much less energy than traditional desalination facilities, “we can operate at very low recovery ratios,” Porter says. As a result, the salinity of the discharged brine is “going to be a lot less salty in a low-recovery system than an onshore high-recovery system,” he notes.

For example, onshore desalination plants typically produce brine that is twice as salty as the surrounding ambient environment into which they discharge, Porter says. “In our case, we can produce brine as low as 5% or 10% above ambient (salinity),” he notes. “It’s an order of magnitude lower salinity, and in some jurisdictions it’s not even considered brine.” Because of the low saline concentration of the discharge and the depths and currents of the subsea, brine exiting the unit returns to ambient salinity within seconds of the discharge point.

Another advantage conferred by OceanWell’s approach is its minimal effects on aquatic organisms, beginning with its deep-sea location, where little sunlight penetrates. “You don’t have photosynthesis, you don’t have a vibrant food chain, and so you don’t have as much marine life,” Porter says. The cold temperatures of the deep sea also reduce biological activity. Even so, the treatment unit includes a screening system that is designed to avoid harming marine life. “It’s a multistage mechanical filtration mechanism that allows us to gently wash out any entrained organisms,” he says.

This rendering of an OceanWell “water farm” and its onshore control station highlights the system’s smaller land requirements as compared with a traditional onshore desalination facility. (Image courtesy of OceanWell)
This rendering of an OceanWell “water farm” and its onshore control station highlights the system’s smaller land requirements as compared with a traditional onshore desalination facility. (Image courtesy of OceanWell)
Unlike traditional onshore desalination facilities, OceanWell’s system has a “very small onshore footprint” that includes a control station and any additional treatment processes required by the water customer, says Kalyn Simon, the company’s director of engagement. “That’s another advantage” of OceanWell’s system, Simon says.

Pilot test planned

In August, the LVMWD and OceanWell signed a memorandum of understanding under which the company will conduct a pilot test of its treatment technology in the district’s Las Virgenes Reservoir in Westlake Village. The company previously performed prototype testing of its system at the U.S. Navy’s Deep Ocean Simulation Facility at the Naval Surface Warfare Center’s Port Hueneme Division, in Port Hueneme, California.

Multiple OceanWell desalination units can be linked together and discharge to the same pipeline that conveys treated water to shore. (Image courtesy of OceanWell)
Multiple OceanWell desalination units can be linked together and discharge to the same pipeline that conveys treated water to shore. (Image courtesy of OceanWell)
Although it holds freshwater, the LVMWD’s reservoir, which is 120 ft deep at its lowest point, will provide a “good stress test” on OceanWell’s treatment system, Simon says. “The reservoir has different metals in it, it has algae, it has a lot of bacterial life in it,” she notes. “We will be doing tests on the system in a harsher environment, we believe, than the deep ocean will be for certain aspects of the system.”

Expected to begin in mid-2024, the pilot test will last at least 5-6 months and involve a treatment unit that is 4 ft in diameter and about 10 ft tall and has a treatment capacity of 8,000 gal./day. By comparison, OceanWell’s full-scale commercial unit is nearly 40 ft wide, 33 ft tall, and can treat 5 mgd, although the modular nature of the system makes it easy to adjust treatment capacities as needed.

If the pilot test succeeds, the LVMWD and OceanWell will conduct a “larger subsea at-depth demonstration project expected to produce an initial 1,000 acre-ft per year of drinking water,” according to the MOU. Following the successful completion of the demonstration project, the entities would pursue a commercial installation capable of providing up to 11,000 acre-ft/year of fresh water to the LVMWD, while also potentially helping meet the needs of other water providers in the region, according to the MOU.

OceanWell plans to test its desalination treatment module in the Las Virgenes Reservoir in Westlake Village, California. (Image courtesy of Las Virgenes Municipal Water District)
OceanWell plans to test its desalination treatment module in the Las Virgenes Reservoir in Westlake Village, California. (Image courtesy of Las Virgenes Municipal Water District)
Working with wave power

The LVMWD is not the only California agency investigating the possible use of offshore desalination technology to help meet its water needs. In July, the city of Fort Bragg — a coastal community approximately 165 mi north of San Francisco — and Oneka Technologies, a developer of wave-powered desalination buoys, announced that they had entered a partnership to develop California’s first wave-powered desalination project.

Fort Bragg obtains its drinking water from the Noyo River, a source that has proved unreliable in recent years. During summer 2021, “low river flows, combined with high-tide events, resulted in brackish water,” according to the July 23 news release from Fort Bragg and Oneka. “Fortunately, the city was able to secure emergency grant funds from the state of California to install a portable desalination unit,” the release states.

Oneka Technologies plans to test its wave-powered desalination buoy off the coast of Fort Bragg, California, in 2024. (Image courtesy of Jesus Rivero/Oneka Technologies)
Oneka Technologies plans to test its wave-powered desalination buoy off the coast of Fort Bragg, California, in 2024. (Image courtesy of Jesus Rivero/Oneka Technologies)
Under its agreement with the city, Oneka will test the use of what it calls its Iceberg-class desalination buoy offshore of Fort Bragg. Situated on the water’s surface and tethered to the ocean floor, the 16 ft by 26 ft buoy houses a seawater treatment system that can produce up to 13,200 gal./day, depending on wave height, according to Oneka’s website. The buoy is to be located 0.1 to 0.3 mi offshore in water depths between 43 and 98 ft.

Zero emissions

The oscillating motion of waves drives the treatment system. As the buoy moves down in the trough, it induces seawater to enter and pass through a 60-micron mesh strainer designed to reduce impacts to marine life. As the buoy rises with the wave, the motion pressurizes a pump, which conveys the water into a pressure-and-flow optimization system. From there, the water is forced through a self-cleaning RO membrane system that is designed to achieve a 25% recovery rate.

The resulting brine, which is 30% more saline than normal ocean conditions, is discharged into the ocean, where it is diffused by wave action and sea currents. The treated water is pumped to shore. Depending on the required volume of treated water, multiple buoys may be arranged as part of a modular system.

A key benefit of Oneka’s technology is that it “takes the ocean’s own energy to desalinate seawater, instead of having other sources of energy to feed the desalination process,” says Marie-Cécile Cléroux, the company’s coordinator for marketing and communication. “Oneka’s system is decentralized and 100% mechanical,” Cléroux says. “It does not depend on any other energy than the power of the waves and produces the freshwater to the coastline without any greenhouse gas emissions.”

For the pilot project, the buoy is planned to be deployed in 2024 for a demonstration period of 12 months. Permitting for the project is underway, Cléroux says. “We’ve already received permits for weather wave data buoys and installed them,” she notes. “These indicate the wave statistics of the site.”

Another type of buoy

SeaWell LLC is another company developing an offshore desalination technology that operates at the water’s surface. Designed to produce up to 1 mgd, the SeaWell 150 Buoy features a 21 ft diameter top deck that connects to a narrower cylinder, which extends downward to the intake structure on the bottom of the buoy, about 40 ft below the surface. The buoy is anchored to the seafloor.

The SeaWell 150 Buoy includes a seawater desalination system that is designed to produce up to 1 mgd of drinking water. (Image courtesy of SeaWell LLC)
The SeaWell 150 Buoy includes a seawater desalination system that is designed to produce up to 1 mgd of drinking water. (Image courtesy of SeaWell LLC)
The intake is outfitted with wedge wire screens with 1 mm openings that are designed to reduce the velocity of the entering water and limit the entrainment and impingement of aquatic organisms. Before entering the RO process, water passes through a series of filters. “We are very focused on the water quality going to the membranes,” says SeaWell CEO Peter Stricker.

High-pressure pumps then push the water through the RO membranes, and the treated water is pumped to shore via a conveyance pipeline. Brine from the RO membranes that is 43-54% more saline than seawater is discharged from the buoy near the water surface, according to Stricker. Meanwhile, energy-recovery devices use the pressure of the brine stream to generate energy.

The SeaWell 150 Buoy includes a seawater desalination system that is designed to produce up to 1 mgd of drinking water. (Image courtesy of SeaWell LLC)
The SeaWell 150 Buoy includes a seawater desalination system that is designed to produce up to 1 mgd of drinking water. (Image courtesy of SeaWell LLC)
Releasing brine near the water surface offers a “great advantage” when it comes to ensuring that discharges from the buoy do not negatively affect ambient salinity levels, Stricker says. “There’s a great natural mechanism for mixing because we’re high in the water column and the highest current velocities are up there too,” he notes. “Brine is heavier than seawater, so it sinks.” Modeling conducted by SeaWell indicates that the brine “doesn’t descend very far before the salinity becomes very close to ambient seawater salinity,” Stricker says.

Treated water is conveyed to SeaWell’s onshore facility. Dubbed the “Water Station,” the post-treatment module disinfects, adjusts the pH, and remineralizes the desalinated water to meet drinking water standards and ensure compatibility with customers’ distribution systems.

‘Grand scheme’

In November, SeaWell began testing a smaller version of its buoy at the Deep Ocean Simulation Facility. The basic operational testing will last three months and potentially be extended another six months, Stricker says.

The testing is in advance of a pilot project that SeaWell plans to conduct in 2024 offshore of the Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara. Eventually, SeaWell aims to provide drinking water to the U.S. Space Force facility, which currently relies on water sources that are prone to drought.

Ultimately, SeaWell’s “grand scheme” is to deploy its technology along all of California’s coastal counties, Stricker says. The plan is known as Water Tap and would involve strategically locating SeaWell’s Water Stations so that water agencies would be readily able to draw from the system as needed. Buoys could be rapidly added during droughts or other periods of high water demand and then removed when they are no longer necessary.

By meeting the needs of California’s coastal communities, the Water Tap plan would enable the State Water Project to concentrate its deliveries to the Central Valley and other inland areas that cannot readily access desalinated water.

“We think that’s a really beautiful, sensible idea,” Stricker says.

This article is published by Civil Engineering Online.

UPDATES

John Lindsey:12/14/23 says

“I hope the models for Wednesday, December 20, don’t verify. They indicate storm-force (50+ mph) southerly winds and up to three inches of rain in less than 24 hours. Altogether, from this Sunday evening through the end of the year, up to 7 inches of rain could be recorded in many Central Coast locations, with higher amounts in the Santa Lucia”

Other forecasts suggest  Latest GFS model as Dec 14 show central California could see rain for 10 days through December 29 with a couple of days break for Christmas!

China Peak ski resort above Fresno is expecting snow starting December 17-18, The lifts will open Saturday, December 16-18, then daily December 21 through January 1, then to our five day per week schedule through April.

 

-December 10,2023-

Local weather forecaster John Lindsey is adding his voice to predictions of a a wet patten pattern visiting the central coast after December UCLA forecaster Daniel Swain posted the same prognostication this week as well on the website Weather West.

Here is John Lindsey’s post

“Rea Strange, my mentor, and legendary meteorologist, emphasized, “Pay close attention to the mid-latitude westerlies; when they extend across the Pacific, there’s a high likelihood of significant precipitation.” Recent runs from the numerical models suggest the possibility of heavy rain and higher-level snow setting in from Dec. 19, possibly persisting into January 2024, pending the validation of these models. On Christmas Day, an aircraft departing from Japan en route to the United States would surpass the speed of sound in actual ground speed. If your roof is prone to leaks, I strongly advise addressing repairs within the upcoming week. The GFS indicates between 2 and 5 inches of rain for much of the Central Coast between Dec. 19 and Christmas.”

And from Daniel Swain.

After frustrating false starts, strong indications of a major Pacific jet extension & active pattern by late Dec

Fresh off the presses (the 12z GFS ensemble average from 12/8), it depicts a dramatic eastward extension of the jet stream beginning within a week near the coast of Japan and then eventually extending across almost the entire North Pacific basin toward the California coast (over 5,000 miles away!) by about 2 weeks from now.Here isa rendering of the pattern

Swain predicts “A relatively dry and warm pattern will continue for the next 7-10 days, then with perhaps gradually more active conditions 10-14 days from now before potentially more dramatic shift toward wet and active conditions after that–most likely sometime during the last week in Dec. But this Pacific-wide rearrangement of the longwave pattern is exactly what we would need to finally break down this wavy jet and mostly “ridgey” pattern that’s stuck around the past couple of months.”
Is there 100% certainty in this pattern change? Well, the odds of a remarkably strong zonal jet over the Pacific do appear very high at the moment. But the critical time for California remains about 2 weeks out, then the nose of this powerful jet core would possibly arrive near the coast. Will it make it all the way, and will it still be remarkably strong? Will it direct a sequence of strong/moist storms into California in the days following? I’m leaning toward yes at the moment, but as always…things can change, and this is still a fair distance in the future. Uncertainty is high, but this certainly has potential. So: stay tuned! I’ll be updating on various social media sites (including YouTube office hours) in the meantime; if something really big does end up developing, that’ll be the trigger for the next blog post 10-14 days down the line.

Wet and warm

The newest slew of seasonal model predictions for the core winter months–January through March–we just released a couple of days ago. And the theme is very familiar: they continue to point, as they have for months, toward a pretty decent tilt in the odds toward wetter than average conditions in California (especially central and southern CA) during this period. (Notably, they did not do so for the Oct-Dec period.) They also point toward very high confidence in a warmer than average winter across nearly the entire Western U.S., including California. So it would not be tremendously surprising to see above average precipitation but near to below average snowpack in some portions of the Pacific Southwest this year due to this persistent warmth. Elevation will help mitigate that–near and along the mountain range crests, there’s a pretty good shot of hefty accumulations this year–but lower down the slopes, the strong El Nino event plus the long term warming trend might mean that temperatures will be a problem for snow lovers at lower to middle elevations this season.

UPDATE: Good Ol high pressure put storms into northern Calif only into the first week!

 

-November 23,2023-

The GFS weather in model is pointing to a wet first week in December across California after a dry spell during this 2023 Thanksgiving holiday week.

The Central Coast could see rain as early as December 1 and repeated storms coming into the state from the north over the over the week through December 9 with some rain every day and heavy rain on most of those days.

Fed by an El Nino pattern, the model shows an Atmospheric River  coming from the southwest December 6.

Currently, we have El Niño conditions, strong El Niño conditions at that. And those are continuing to intensify,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles said during a recent webinar on the subject.

“Models suggest that the current El Niño event will further strengthen it potentially into a very strong, or a quote-unquote, ‘super’ El Niño event, within the next couple of months,” he added.

Of course model can change a week out but SF NWS said it predicts rain starting November 30 for every day through Dec 7.

-November 13,2023-

New home construction drops big time in 2023

New home construction has dropped off a cliff in San Luis Obispo County as high interest rates appear to have cooled home sales .According to the website Construction Monitor builders have permitted just 211 new homes in 2023 through October. That compares to 483 unit over the same time in 2022 and 554 through the sea 10 months of 2021.The busiest builders so far this year Midland Pacific Building Corp with 29 homes and Coastal Community Builders with 24.

Jobless rate falls in SLO County

The unemployment rate in the San Luis Obispo County was 3.6 percent in September 2023, down from a revised 3.7 percent in August 2023, and above the year-ago estimate of 2.7 percent. This compares with an unadjusted unemployment rate of 4.9 percent for California and 3.6 percent for the nation during the same period.

A look at the numbers show SLO County generated 4000 more non farm jobs than a year ago and 200 more farm jobs. Construction jobs were down 300 year over year. The largest gain in the local economy came in the hospitality sector- with 1600 more jobs than September 2022.

EDD figures show some 2200 more people in the labor force than a year earlier. About 5000 people are unemployed in the county.

New home construction drops big time in 2023

New home construction has dropped off a cliff in San Luis Obispo County as high interest rates appear to have cooled home sales. According to the website Construction Monitor builders have permitted just 211 new homes in 2023 through October. That compares to 483 units over the same time in 2022 and 554 through the first 10 months of 2021.The busiest builders so far this year are Midland Pacific Building Corp with 29 homes and Coastal Community Builders with 24.

 

Fewer tourist visit SLO & Morro Bay

Fewer tourists stayed at one of Morro Bay’s 1000 hotel rooms in October according to travel reports. Hotel occupancy was down 6 to 7% in Morro Bay in the month of October depending on the week. Occupancy was 58% in the last week of the month down from 67% in weeks before.

In San Luis Obispo, the city transient occupancy tax(TOT) report shows the occupancy was down 2% in August and in September and September hotel occupancy was 71%. Fewer hotel rooms sold in August resulted in a approximate 5% lower transient occupancy tax monies coming to the City.

-November 7,2023-

Forecaster John Lindsey posts “We should prepare for inclement weather. The majority of numerical models have consistently forecasted a stormy mid-November. Currently, we anticipate moderate to heavy rainfall, ranging from 1 to 3 inches, coupled with moderate gale-force to fresh gale-force winds blowing from the south at speeds between 32 to 46 mph. Additionally, high southerly seas, measuring between 12 to 14 feet, will be followed by a westerly swell of 16 to 18 feet (with a period of 14 to 16 seconds), which is expected to start along the Central Coast on November 15th.”

Someone joked it was time to take those Halloween skeletons off the roof. NOAA long range forecast calls for wet period across the West (pictured below)

Here is a GFS model snapshot of the storm that should cover the West Coast November 16.The model shows the storm lasting for several days.Already this week snow storms have closed several Sierra passes including Tioga and Sonora.Other map shows 3 inches of precipitation around SLO by the 20th.

October 19, 2023

-from NOAA
This year, El Nino is in place heading into winter for the first time in four years, driving the outlook for warmer-than-average temperatures for the northern tier of the continental United States, according to NOAA’s U.S. Winter Outlook released today by the Climate Prediction Center — a division of the National Weather Service.

 

“These outlooks provide critical guidance on the upcoming season for many industries and sectors of our economy, from energy producers to commodities markets to agricultural interests to tourism,” said Sarah Kapnick, Ph.D., NOAA chief scientist. “With a strengthening El Nino and more potential climate extremes in an already record-breaking year, we’re lucky to have scientists like those at the Climate Prediction Center helping to build a Weather and Climate-Ready Nation by providing critical operational seasonal climate predictions.”

From December through February, NOAA predicts wetter-than-average conditions for northern Alaska, portions of the West, the southern Plains, Southeast, Gulf Coast and lower mid-Atlantic and drier-than-average conditions across the northern tier of the U.S., especially in the northern Rockies and High Plains and near the Great Lakes.
“An enhanced southern jet stream and associated moisture often present during strong El Nino events supports high odds for above-average precipitation for the Gulf Coast, lower Mississippi Valley and Southeast states this winter,” said Jon Gottschalck, chief of the Operational Prediction Branch of the Climate Prediction Center.
NOAA forecasters, in collaboration with the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), continue to monitor extreme, ongoing drought conditions that have persisted through the southern and central U.S. and worsening drought in Hawaii.
“According to the Oct. 17 U.S. Drought Monitor, a third of the country, including Puerto Rico, is in drought,” said Brad Pugh, operational drought lead with NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. “During late October, heavy precipitation is likely to result in drought improvement for the central U.S. El Nino with its enhanced precipitation is expected to provide drought relief to the southern U.S. during the next few months.”
The 2023-2024 U.S. Winter Outlook map for temperature shows the greatest chances for warmer-than-average conditions are in the northern tier of the continental United States. (Image credit: NOAA)

Temperature
Warmer-than-average temperatures are favored across the northern tier of the U.S. and much of the Far West.
The greatest odds for warmer-than-average conditions are in Alaska, the Pacific Northwest and northern New England.
Near-normal seasonal mean temperatures are most likely for a region from the south-central Rockies to the southern Plains.
Remaining areas fall into the category of equal chances for below-, near-, or above-average seasonal mean temperatures.

The 2023-2024 U.S. Winter Outlook map for precipitation shows wetter-than-average conditions are most likely across the South and Southeast and parts of California and Nevada. Drier-than-average conditions are forecast for parts of the northern tier of the United States.
Precipitation
Wetter-than-average conditions are most likely in northern Alaska, some areas of the West from parts of California to the south-central Rockies, the southern Plains, Gulf Coast, Southeast and lower mid-Atlantic.
The greatest odds for drier-than-average conditions are forecast in portions of the northern Rockies and central Great Lakes region, especially for Michigan and northern Ohio and Indiana.
Much of the central portion of the U.S. falls into the category of equal chances for below-, near-, or above-average seasonal total precipitation.