SHOWERS RETURN FOR WEDNESDAY-THURSDAY

Share with Friends

Here in the North Bay we continue to live on the edge of the active storm track. This jet stream has been sending a procession of Pacific storms straight into Washington and Oregon, but only brushing us with showers at times.

That pattern continues on Wednesday and Thursday as two small storms push far enough south to bring a little rain our way.

The satellite view Monday looks pretty impressive, with a frontal system pushing south. Trouble is, most of the storm’s energy will be spent pushing high pressure out of the way. By the time it reaches us, the storm will begin to fall apart.

The models show two impulses pushing through, one late Wednesday morning, and one sometime Thursday morning.

You can see how stubborn high pressure is being squeezed a bit, but still hanging tough off the CA coast. The Wednesday system should be the stronger of the two, and by Friday we may pick up a third to a half inch of rain in the wetter areas of the North Bay. The WPC, National Blend of Models and Canadian model forecasts are all wetter than the European (below), the GFS model is somewhat drier.

You can see the big rains just to the north. So, the pattern continues.

By the weekend we go back into a dry pattern.

Further out there continues to be decent agreement among the models that the pattern may open up to more CA storms after mid-month.

However the ensemble models, European and GFS, are not in agreement about what’s coming our way in the 3rd week of December, with the European (in the latest runs) turning noticeably drier. Which is not a good sign. We’ll keep watching.