From the California Weather Blog:
Current weather summary: “A weak cut-off low pressure system brought some convective shower activity to parts of Southern California earlier this week, and a few locations received rather heavy (if brief) downpours. Unfortunately, overall precipitation was very insignificant for a late-December weather system in California and most places north of Santa Barbara saw no precipitation whatsoever. High pressure has since been rebuilding over the West Coast, with generally clear conditions and increasingly warm temperatures (approaching record levels in some places). With no meaningful precipitation expected through December 31st, calendar year 2013 will be the driest year on record in the state of California.
The extraordinary persistence of the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge of 2013: Zonal (west-to-east) flow typically predominates during the cool season in this region, which directs storm systems that develop over the ocean toward the West Coast. While the storm track does often vary in latitude along the West Coast over the course of any given winter, southward excursions of the jet stream usually bring periods of significant precipitation to much or all of California, which in sum account for the vast majority of all precipitation observed in the state. 2013, however, has featured rather incredibly persistent atmospheric anomalies over the northeastern Pacific Ocean and the West Coast of North America. … “
Read more from the California Weather Blog here: A comparison of California’s extreme 2013 dry spell to the 1976-1977 drought
