Author Topic: New (central) California Drought?  (Read 1419 times)

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Offline spc fresno

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New (central) California Drought?
« on: November 28, 2017, 01:59:34 PM »
Thanks for reading!!!
THIS POST IS NOT AN OFFICIAL STATEMENT AND IS ONLY MY PERSONAL OPINION

It has been abnormally dry in the past 2 months here in the southern San Joaquin Valley. I know that a few months of dryness don't automatically equal a drought, but the overall pattern of storms dissolving before reaching central CA seems very familiar (2013, anybody?). It seems that the northern Pacific states are being constantly battered by heavy rains, which run out of moisture by the time they make it to areas south of Sacramento, leaving only a few hit and miss showers. Since the rain year began in October, Fresno has received 23% of it's normal precip, and Bakersfield sits at 3% of normal (they only had one day of measurable precipitation, which was only 0.03"). It seems like this is only occurring in the central to southern part of the state. Sacramento, only about 175 miles to the north of Fresno, is at a much higher 71%. When the November 2017 Monthly Hydrology Summary (http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/hnx/clisum.php) comes out from the National Weather Service in Hanford, I will examine this much closer. Until then, does anybody else have anything to say about this topic? :-s

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(Climate Prediction Center's 8-14 Day Outlook)

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(GEFS 16 Day Accumulated Precip)
Notice how northern CA gets above 0.25" (still not a lot) while southern CA (specifically the San Joaquin valley) gets little to nothing.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2017, 02:45:38 PM by SPCFresno561 »
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Offline SLOweather

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Re: New (central) California Drought?
« Reply #1 on: November 28, 2017, 03:39:58 PM »
As most people here know, I run our 60 meter water company served by 6 wells, so I pay close attention to both above ground and underground weather.

I have been saying since June or so, when asked about this year and our well levels, that generally, I think of the first year after an abnormally wet one as the first year of the next drought. So  far, we are at 26% of our 1 July-30June seasonal average rain fall.

Offline spc fresno

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Re: New (central) California Drought?
« Reply #2 on: December 05, 2017, 02:00:38 PM »
The latest outlook:
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(GFS 16 Day Precip Outlook  :-()
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Offline spc fresno

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Re: New (central) California Drought?
« Reply #3 on: February 06, 2018, 02:13:50 PM »
Well... two months have passed and I know for a fact that this winter has been abnormally dry, and the drought monitor is beginning to show that. Currently three-quarters of the state are under "abnormally dry" status, and most of southern CA is under "moderate drought". It isn't just California, though. Most of the southwest is under drought status (some new areas of "extreme drought" have popped up in Arizona since last week), and things don't look much better in the long run. The GFS and ECM keep showing precip in the 7-10 day range, but they are obviously incorrect (they've been showing that for a week now), and are struggling to deal with the unusual conditions in their solutions. The next chance for any sort of precipitation in the state seems to be showing up around the 20th, when the ridge begins to break down and allow for some much needed moisture to move in from the north. The GFS is also showing a closed low shifting south this Sunday, but there isn't much agreement between the models, so this solution seems somewhat unlikely. We'll see what happens.

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Drought monitor as of Feb 1, 2018

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Drought monitor 3 months ago

P.S. It isn't just the lack of precipitation that is annoying. The high is supposed to be near 80 on Thursday!
« Last Edit: February 06, 2018, 02:15:24 PM by spc fresno »
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