Dear WeatherCat faithful who must endure the weather our stations detect,
California can hardly complain about bad weather considering the misery occurring in other parts of the United States. Still, today we had a significant atmospheric river event which caused some flooding and other disruptions like fallen trees. One such tree ended up occupying a sizable portion of our back yard:
All this was caused by receiving over 1-3/4" of rain (44mm) in less than 18 hours with peak rainfall rates exceeding 1" per hour (25mm per hour.) Further contributing to this was high winds and trees weakened by the long drought.
What will certainly be of greater interest to those still suffering from the extreme cold is the change in temperatures. Here is the graph of temperatures from yesterday evening:
Note that instead of dropping as the afternoon sun disappeared during these short winter days, the temperature continues to climb after 1pm and ultimately ends up almost 10 degrees (F) greater than the day before. The atmospheric river is ushering in warmer air that is expected to ease the cold in the rest of the United States.
So be patient, relief is on the way!
Cheers, Edouard
