Speaker 1: (00:00)
There are weather extremes at each corner of the country. Right now, it's been a rainy week here in San Diego, in a rainy December and tonight. Another storm is expected to arrive in San Diego county bringing even more precipitation joining me with the details on this latest round of storms is national weather service meteorologist Alex to party. Alex, welcome.
Speaker 2: (00:22)
Thanks for having me on. So
Speaker 1: (00:23)
There's a winter storm warning in effect for our mountain areas. What should, what should we expect?
Speaker 2: (00:29)
Yeah, yet another Pacific storm is going to be moving through our area tonight through Thursday. So it seems like an endless series of storms. And it really has been since Christmas E Eve, we've now had four different storms roll through since Christmas Eve. So this particular storm is colder than what we saw around Christmas time. So we expect snow in the mountains again, and that snow will pile up significantly up around 6,000 feet.
Speaker 1: (00:59)
Hmm. Uh, you know, snow in the mountains. What should other areas of the county expect to see? Well, we
Speaker 2: (01:05)
Think when the storm pushes closer to us late tonight and on Thursday, some of the rain will be coming into our coastal cities. It'll be heavy. Um, and what I mean by heavy is enough. Rain will, will cause some urban flooding it'll cause the water water to run hard down the streets and of course in your neighborhood as well. So that type of rain, um, in some cases can be dangerous because you can have large areas where the water is standing or ponding. And it comes to situation where it's not just hydro planting. Um, but some of the roads could be impasable from the local heavy rain along the coast.
Speaker 1: (01:44)
What's causing this current weather. Well,
Speaker 2: (01:46)
That's a great question. You know, all these storms have been coming down from the north. Uh, the weather pattern has set in place that the door opened up and all these storms have been coming down directly from the north, meaning from Western Canada, Alaska. Now originally the storms tapped into atmospheric river tropical moisture. So they were milder storms around Christmas, uh, and equally wet, uh, the storm coming in now. And the one that we just had recently is coming down directly from the north and they're not atmospheric rivers, but they're almost as effective in terms of bringing significant rain to Southern California. And how long
Speaker 1: (02:25)
Will this current storm last? And when can we expect to see full days of sunshine again,
Speaker 2: (02:32)
Well, this current storm that's just developing now off our coast will really be affecting us tonight when we're sleeping. And then especially all day Thursday, I, unfortunately Thursday looks like a wash out for our coastal areas and this rain will move inland across the valleys and foothills. And of course, snow in the mountains like we talked about. So I don't think we'll be back to any type of sunshine and it might be limited still until Friday and new year's Eve. So the good news is we'll see drying as we go into the weekend.
Speaker 1: (03:04)
Oh, you should see my face right now. um, but here's maybe a silver lining. We've had storm after storm this month and a lot of rain. Where are we at in terms of rain totals for the year?
Speaker 2: (03:17)
Yeah, we're re really doing well statewide in California. It's easy to forget about the drought when it rains this much, most of the state now is at a hundred percent where they should be for this time of year. A lot of the Northern part of California is 150 to 200% or two times as wet as it should it be this time of year. So we just saw 10 feet of snow fall in lake Tahoe over the past 10 days. Remarkable. Right? Um, all of this means that we're setting up very well to improving, not ending, but improving our drought conditions significantly.
Speaker 1: (03:56)
Mm. Is the amount of rain we've gotten this month, abnormal normal
Speaker 2: (04:00)
Well for the San Diego area. We'll right about where we should be, but we have another significant storm coming in on Thursday. So I think after that storm, we can start talking about abnormal rain. Even for the San Diego area. December is typically a wet month. We should average about two inches of rain, but after tomorrow storm, most areas will be a over that.
Speaker 1: (04:21)
We're always glad to hear that we're getting rain since we're often in a drought, but what does this mean for fire season? Yeah,
Speaker 2: (04:29)
So it's seems so long ago, but the month of November was dry across all of Southern California, no rain and our fire weather conditions were extreme. Now we were lucky we didn't have many starts and what starts that did occur. They were able to put them out. So the fire season is on hold right now. So it's over with right now, but we have a long winter to go. And the last thing we wanna see is after all this rain in December is to have a dry warm spring. And there is the potential for that, a dry warm spring, and that I can set fire season early in the year. And with all this rain, it means a lot of things are gonna be growing the grasses, the flowers, the weeds. So fire weather's in the back of our mind right now, but the forecast is not necessarily looking positive as we go into the spring.
Speaker 1: (05:19)
I've been speaking with national wide other service, meteorologist Alex tardy, Alex, thank you so much for your insight. Thanks
Speaker 2: (05:26)
So much for having me on happy holidays.
