HOW LONG WILL THE SUN LAST?

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After weeks of rain and cloudy skies, sunny skies are on tap for the North Bay….at least for now.

The Thursday satellite picture shows the latest storm moving east.

Weak high pressure will build in behind this storm for Thursday-Saturday. But you can see a low pressure trough about ready to drop south into CA.

By Sunday that low pressure trough will sag far enough south to bring rain to parts of California. Most of the energy may be focused towards the Sierra and points east.

The models show very little rain reaching us through Wednesday.

Further out, long range ensemble models hint at high pressure building in for the 2nd week of April, but with continued cooler than normal temperatures.

As we get further into spring the jet stream generally pulls north, making it harder to drive large, wet storm systems into California. But this winter has been unique in many ways. It is possible that we’ve seen our last big storm of the rainy season, but it is too early to say for certain.

One possible clue comes in the 10 day ensemble forecasts of both major models. They show a drying trend, with below normal rainfall expected into the 3rd week of April. We’ve not seen that for quite a while!

Meanwhile, the two largest state reservoirs, Shasta and Oroville, have now surpassed historical average storage for the date. Many state reservoirs have begun limited water releases to make room for snowmelt and potential late season storms.

This includes Lake Sonoma which has been dropping recently due to releases designed to maintain flood control capacity.