A large storm system is spinning just off the California coast. It is expected to provide rainfall for the central coast Wednesday through Friday and possibly end early Saturday as well. There are some questions as to how much rainfall could come with the system. Our current forecast here at KSBY is for rain event between a half inch of rain and an inch and a half.
Generally, that means some locations will receive more and some less but most will be in that range. By contrast, the National Weather Service has a forecast for much more rainfall 1-3”.
There are good reasons for some uncertainty here. The low pressure system will spin away off the coast for some time, perhaps having some peak intensity off the coast. The low is not cut-off from the jet stream but it does sit back in a positively tilted trough which keeps some dynamics off the coast for a longer period of time.
While there is an “atmospheric river” component, the forecasts for that are on the lowest end of the scale (1 out of 5). There is significant juicy air but it doesn’t look to get fully integrated with this system.
All those caveats aside, there is decent potential regardless of which forecast you prefer. There are no current advisories, but if NOAA sticks with their 1-3” range, I’d expect some.
It is important to also note it won’t rain every second over a multi-day event, it is on-and-off rain. With the spinning nature of the system timing these on and off moments are difficult to time with precision. Best to expect that on and off nature at any time between the first rains Wednesday and the last early Saturday. Is there "dud" potential. Well, if you are expecting 1-3"...maybe:
Other than that, the weekend looks dry outside of the early Saturday rainfall and the Thanksgiving week looks to be problem-free in California based on the latest modeling. If there are changes we’ll let you know.
It is rare we stick the forecast for tomorrow at the bottom of a story but since I think it'll be a quiet day ahead of all this potential, I put all of that first.
Tuesday will be mild. 60s and 70s for highs with some high clouds.
