California rain totals10/12/2023 He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Atmospheric Science from UC Davis in 1974 and his Master’s from San Jose State in 1992. Null is a Bay Area native, having grown up in Oakland and lived in the East Bay until 2006 when he moved to Saratoga. Twenty years ago he founded a consulting firm, Golden Gate Weather Services, after a 24 year career with the National Weather Service. Jan Null has been a meteorologist in the San Francisco Bay Area for over four decades and is frequently seen on television and heard on the radio when weather is in the news. But will the moisture synch up with the coldest air and at the right time of day? The odds right now look better for low-level snow south of the Bay Area. The setup for later this week shows a similar strength upper low farther offshore than in 1976, with a 5210m minima on Friday morning. The hourly observations that morning showed snow falling at San Francisco International Airport, and it may have been the last snow observation recorded at SFO, since it is unlikely to have been picked up by current automated sensors. The 1000-500 mb thickness was 5221 meters. The meteorology on Feb 5, 1976, showed a cold front having moved south over the state during the overnight hours and supported by a very cold 500 mb low (5280m) west of Pt. The 1976 event was spectacularly captured by the SF Chronicle in this photo by Art Frisch. This is well documented in Mark McLaughlin's wonderful "San Francisco Snowstorms" document ( ) The event on February 5, 1887, was the snowiest on record with over 3 inches in the downtown area of the City. Historically, there have only been 11 days when snow has been recorded near sea level in downtown San Francisco, Twice on February 5th in 887 and again in 1976. The most likely scenario will be snow accumulations in areas around the bay above 1000 to 2000 feet. And the odds against it happening later this week are small, but not impossible. Granted, there have been a handful of occasions since with small pockets of cold air allowing for snow to get close to sea level, but nothing widespread. Twitter: last widespread snowfall down to near sea level in the San Francisco Bay Area was 47 years ago, on February 5, 1976. Please let me know of any errors or omissions. See Īnd to put historical precipitation on the types and strengths of ENSO events, the following analyzed chronologies were updated for both the United States and California. This is coupled with an ENSO Glossary with some of the more common terminology. I have also put together a page of misconceptions about ENSO Events. The Oceanic Nino Index is the defacto metric widely used to classify the strength of ENSO (El Niño - Southern Oscillation).events. They are all available from the EL NIÑO / LA NIÑA RESOURCE PAGE The tone reminded me of the fall of 1997 and this cartoon from the Sacramento Bee:Ĭonsequently, I have updated a number of El Niño and La Niña resources that may assist in keeping things in perspective. And immediately a number of headlines popped up, raising the specter of doom and gloom. Twitter: week, the Climate Prediction Center issued an El Niño Watch, with the expectation that conditions in the tropical Pacific would transition into an El Niño pattern by late summer and continue into next winter. In Southern California, the area was a 2-degree square (32° to 34° N and 117° to 119° W) between about Santa Barbara and San Diego and about 100 miles offshore,ĭuring the 13 El Niño events since 1980, sorted by strength, the sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) in the northern area were only warmer than normal in 6 of the 13 years.Īnd along the southern California coast, the El Niño year SSTAs were warmer than normal in 7 of the 13 years. The following analysis was done by looking at two separate areas along the California coast. In Northern/Central California the study area was a 2-degree square (36° to 38° N and 122° to 124° W) between about Point Reyes and Big Sur and about 100 miles offshore. Historically, during El Niño winters, there are just about equal chances of coastal water temperatures being above or below normal. And in the short-term, the current El Niño has not even officially formed yet, and most waters along the California coast are below normal. Contextually, the sea surface temperature (SST) warming associated with El Niño occurs in the tropical Pacific, approximately 3,000 miles away from California, plus there is no physical process where that equatorial water is transported to the California coast. However, a look at the data doesn't support that conjecture. Media reports of late, and during past El Niño events, have attributed the presence of warm water species of marine life along the California coast to El Niño.
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