From the California Weather Blog:
Weather conditions over the past two months have varied wildly throughout California.Extremely heavy precipitation and unusually warm conditions in early December in the northern/central coastal regions gave way to very cold and mostly dry conditions around the new year (though not dry enough to preclude some remarkable low elevation snowfall in the lower hills of Southern California).
Early January continued to bring a mixed bag of conditions–Central California has remained completely dry since the subtropical tap in early December shut off, while parts of SoCal saw some unexpectedly heavy precipitation courtesy of a rather unusual cut-off low pressure area that moved in from the southwest. The Sierra Nevada, for the most part, has been dry over the past month–and in many places, quite warm (with daytime highs and even some overnight lows remaining well above freezing).
Meanwhile, far northern California has experienced some significant precipitation over the past couple of days. When taken together, all of these varied conditions paint a complex meteorological picture–but on a statewide basis, conditions have trended once again toward much drier and much warmer than average over the past 30+ days. … ”
So what’s behind this volatility and trend towards drier conditions? Continue reading at the California Weather Blog here: A new year, a new ridge: dry and warm conditions return to California, but how does the present pattern compare to last year’s?
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