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California Sierra snowpack approaching 40 year record highs

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SDGE came out today and got their bucket truck stuck on my Dad's property, East San Diego. My Dad warned them that it probably wasn't a good idea to drive a heavy bucket truck in the field.
We have gotten so much rain that while the top of the soil looks fine, any heavy vehicle breaks right through and winds up stuck in the mud.

PXL_20230302_192236489.jpg
 
The rain has been good for us, but I wish we'd get at least some of it in summertime instead of literally zero. It might prevent some of these fires.
 
MtnMan said:
How much of this snow pack is in the Colorado River basin, replenishing Lake Powell/Lake Mead, vs. just CA reservoirs or just flowing into the Pacific?
Click to expand...

You don't do geography huh?

It is pretty freaky seeing snow in the hills around Palo Alto! There were street closures due to snow if you went past 280 towards Skyline Blvd into the hills.
 
quikah said:
You don't do geography huh?

It is pretty freaky seeing snow in the hills around Palo Alto! There were street closures due to snow if you went past 280 towards Skyline Blvd into the hills.
Click to expand...
I'm an east coaster, and I can tell you exactly where the eastern continental divide is, literally less than 10 miles from where I live. Aside from some major CA cities locations, I don't know much about the west, especially names of mountain ranges.

Conversely, I would not choose to demean your lack of geographic knowledge if I told you a foot of rain fell on the Black Mountain range, one of the highest ranges in the Appalachian chain, and you didn't know if that rain would flow into the Atlantic Ocean, or the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. But if it makes you feel like a smarter person, I'm happy to contribute to your ego, it sounds like it needs a boost.
 
MtnMan said:
I'm an east coaster, and I can tell you exactly where the eastern continental divide is, literally less than 10 miles from where I live. Aside from some major CA cities locations, I don't know much about the west, especially names of mountain ranges.

Conversely, I would not choose to demean your lack of geographic knowledge if I told you a foot of rain fell on the Black Mountain range, one of the highest ranges in the Appalachian chain, and you didn't know if that rain would flow into the Atlantic Ocean, or the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. But if it makes you feel like a smarter person, I'm happy to contribute to your ego, it sounds like it needs a boost.
Click to expand...

OK, but Lake Powell/Lake Mead are way east from California. SOME of all this moisture might make its way into the Colorado River drainage...but not much. The rain/snowfall that's hitting the Rocky Mountain region...Parts of Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, those will help the Colorado River.

Map_colorado-river_wikimedia.jpg
 
MtnMan said:
Conversely, I would not choose to demean your lack of geographic knowledge if I told you a foot of rain fell on the Black Mountain range, one of the highest ranges in the Appalachian chain, and you didn't know if that rain would flow into the Atlantic Ocean, or the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. But if it makes you feel like a smarter person, I'm happy to contribute to your ego, it sounds like it needs a boost.
Click to expand...

Don't be such a baby, geez. If I didn't know where a place was I would look it up on a map.
 
Drach said:
God I love California. It's pretty rare to find a place that you can go surfing and snow skiing on the same day.
Mt. Diablo this week.
Fp11bd5aAAAuYba.jpg:large
Click to expand...
Nice pic! I think everything in that picture that isn't covered in snow is old landslide deposits.
 
Muse said:
Just had a peak at 10 day outlook in my locale and it says showers most days. Then looked up snowpack and they're saying looks like cold and rain may extend into April! 😳 I'm OMG, my plans for my yard need revisions. This is shaping up to be the year we hoped for in terms of drought busting, yep. Groundwater replenishment will take more than this, but the reservoirs should mostly be pretty set for now.

sfist.com

Sierra Snowpack On Pace To Break 40-Year Record, Bay Area Rains Might Last Until April

The current gigantic snow dump, combined with January’s storms, could break 40-year-old snowpack records in parts of the state, as the forecast calls for more cold and precipitation through March and possibly into April.
sfist.com sfist.com
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Looks like the start of a new ice age to me.
 
Brovane said:
SDGE came out today and got their bucket truck stuck on my Dad's property, East San Diego. My Dad warned them that it probably wasn't a good idea to drive a heavy bucket truck in the field.
We have gotten so much rain that while the top of the soil looks fine, any heavy vehicle breaks right through and winds up stuck in the mud.

View attachment 77506
Click to expand...
It's just something that Alpha Males are condemned to do. 🙂
 
MtnMan said:
How much of this snow pack is in the Colorado River basin, replenishing Lake Powell/Lake Mead, vs. just CA reservoirs or just flowing into the Pacific?
Click to expand...

My mother lives in Vegas and according to her the mountains around Vegas have record snowpacks. Any rain or melted snow from storms in the area gets funneled into Mead due to how Vegas and the surrounding area designed their storm drains.
 
Moonbeam said:
It's just something that Alpha Males are condemned to do. 🙂
Click to expand...

Yup, something like "Hold my Beer" or "Watch This!!".

Of course my Dad knew how bad the field was because he got his RV stuck in the field about 6-weeks earlier.
That was a mess, we used boards and shovels to get the RV out and he hadn't gone very far into the field before realizing his mistake.
The SDGE kept going until his tires were very well buried.


PXL_20230120_211728041.jpg
 
@Paratus
You imagine this series of storms + cold snap in California is a result of the Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) event a few weeks back?
I did expect its impacts to be felt in the East, but a return to normal in ~10 days is about the coldest we can achieve.

Commonly, temperature anomalies between the West Coast and Midwest / East Coast are polar opposites. So maybe California got it instead of us?
 
After a brief hiatus, three more days of rain. Thunder and lightning two nights in a row. Coming down hard. We haven't been battered like this since, I think it was around 1987.
 
Jaskalas said:
@Paratus
You imagine this series of storms + cold snap in California is a result of the Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) event a few weeks back?
I did expect its impacts to be felt in the East, but a return to normal in ~10 days is about the coldest we can achieve.

Commonly, temperature anomalies between the West Coast and Midwest / East Coast are polar opposites. So maybe California got it instead of us?
Click to expand...
Heard I think in TV the other day: A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture—about 7 percent more per 1.8°F (1°C) of warming .

So, global warming is stoking the formation of the storms we are experiencing. Those would include this winter's and, of course, the hurricane/typhoon/cyclone events.

Atmospheric Moisture Increase | Climate Signals

A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture—about 7 percent more per 1.8°F (1°C) of warming—and scientists have already observed a significant increase in atmospheric moisture due to the air’s ability to hold more moisture as it warms. Storms supplied by climate change with increasing moisture are...
www.climatesignals.org www.climatesignals.org
 
woolfe9998 said:
After a brief hiatus, three more days of rain. Thunder and lightning two nights in a row. Coming down hard. We haven't been battered like this since, I think it was around 1987.
Click to expand...
Another storm coming through N. Calif. right now. I heard rolling thunder early this morning (it's only 4AM here now), then there was pouring rain laced with hail. I've heard thunder quite a few times in the last few weeks, which is very unusual. On average I hear thunder maybe once a year here.

More storms are imminent here. We aren't due for 3 straight days without rain until Thursday (4 days from now). Snow continues to pile up in the Sierras. I think we're around record levels now for the date and I figure we are apt to surpass records by April.
 
Jaskalas said:
@Paratus
You imagine this series of storms + cold snap in California is a result of the Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) event a few weeks back?
I did expect its impacts to be felt in the East, but a return to normal in ~10 days is about the coldest we can achieve.

Commonly, temperature anomalies between the West Coast and Midwest / East Coast are polar opposites. So maybe California got it instead of us?
Click to expand...
Seems at least plausible. In general the stratosphere has cooled since heat has a slightly tougher time getting through the increase in greenhouse gases and reaching the stratosphere/space from the ground.

Heat transfer is still going to happen and I guess SSW is one way it happens. If that moves the jet stream around then it can let the cold at the North Pole down to lower latitude. I guess it depends on how the jet steam is deformed that defines where the cold air is going and for how long.

Definitely getting into weather more than climate here.
 
From Mercurynews.com just now. OMG, they said the storms would let up for 3 days starting Thursday. Now they're saying an atmospheric river will hit Thursday and Friday. Sheesh. 😳

Atmospheric river storm this week will bring heavy rain, raise flood concerns with huge Sierra Nevada snowpack
Experts are watching computer models closely, nervous about growing flood risk

The winter of 2023 isn’t finished yet. Not by a long shot.

An atmospheric river storm is likely to hit Northern California late Thursday into Friday, meteorologists and climate scientists said Monday, bringing high chances of heavy rain in the Bay Area, 1 to 3 feet of new snow at higher elevations in the Sierra, and an increased risk of flooding as the warm rain hits the state’s massive snowpack.

Details about the storm, a classic “pineapple express” event barreling in more than 2,000 miles from Hawaii, are still not certain.

But this past weekend, computer models began to show its likelihood increasing from about 10% to now about 70%, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty at this point regarding how intense it will be, how prolonged it will be, and the impacts it will likely have,” Swain said, “as well as whether it will be followed by additional warm storms or not. All of that is up in the air. However, confidence has grown that a warm rain event of some magnitude will occur later this week.”

This storm is most likely to be a 3 on a scale of 1 to 5, potentially a 4, said Marty Ralph, director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at UC San Diego and one of the nation’s leading experts on atmospheric rivers.

“It will be felt as far south as San Diego and up to the Russian River,” Ralph said.
 
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