Cool, Showers Stay North for Now. A Possible Wet November?

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For the weekend, broad low pressure troughing will pass to the east of Northern California. In the North Bay we will stay dry, but cool with highs in the low 70s and lows in the 40s. Showers may finally reach us next week, but the models continue to disagree.

The American GFS forecast model wins this round, correctly forecasting that showers would stay north through this weekend. The European model was more progressive with rain. Now it has pushed the arrival of rain to the last couple days of the month.

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Here is the current pressure pattern, with an upper low pressure trough passing to our east. That’s a dry scenerio for us, and usually windy. However the broad trough will lessen the sharp pressure gradients we normally see, so any offshore winds Saturday through Sunday should be moderate at most. However, fire weather concerns may briefly be heightened at times over the North Bay mountains into Monday.

Although we’ll be dry through midweek, showers will reach the Sierra and far Northern California this weekend.

By next weekend, the European and Canadian models see moisture reaching us in the North Bay, with rain possible around the 29th. The GFS model disagrees for now, keeping us mostly dry.

However, even the GFS model shows changes in the first week of November, with the arrival of a deep low pressure trough off the coast.

Sometime in the first week of November, all models show a much wetter pattern settling in to Northern California. The National Blend of Models averages them all, with the European and Canadian earlier, and the GFS model later in the arrival of significant rain. This is rain by November 2nd via the NBM.

The differences are that the European and Canadian forecast models show rain starting up in the last couple of days of October, with the GFS holding off until several days later.

Of course, all of this will change as we get closer to the end of the month. But, the overall message is clear; rain reaching us over the next 2-3 weeks.

And, significantly, BOTH of the major long range models now suggest that we may be wetter than normal through November 25th. In this regard, the GFS model has joined the European in becoming more bullish on November rain for California.

Finally, if you want something really fun to look at, we offer the Climate Forecast System outlook for precipitation anomaly for October, November and December. Remember, this is just for fun, and could certainly change as our main influence is La Nina at present which suggests this may be optimistic.

Still, the European Weeklies seasonal outlook is similar. We’ll continue to watch the trends and see how it all pans out.