Utrex

Looking likely for a thunderstorm outbreak this evening - Friday morning over coastal, valley, and mountain regions over Central California and the bottom half of Northern California... The lowest parts of the valley are likely not going to produce significant fire threats, though the valley sides and mountains could receive some intense fires tonight. On August 2014, a similar setup occured with moisture depicted to turn into widespread elevated dry thunderstorms, however the moisture was nowhere near as much as the models depicted, thus no thunderstorms developed. Between now and tonight, anything could happen. Let's hope more moisture doesn't get advected, since that would only spawn more convection.

The EMCWF and GFS both indicate an increase in Phase 1 MJO activity. The MJO pulse should be situated over Africa/Western Africa. In addition, this may cause westerlies to develop over the Central Pacific through the Galapagos... http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/CLIVAR/ECMF_phase_51m_full.gif http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/CLIVAR/NCPE_phase_21m_small.gif

I did see some very impressive lightning bolts/flashes at night. We had a cell form right next to where I am giving us an amazing lightning display but as it began to pass it dissipated and produced a shower. The raindrops that came from the dissipating cell were very large.

Turns out showers/thunderstorms in the Sierras can spillover down into CenCal and NorCal foothills/valleys, according to the NAM and HRRR tonight from around 9 pm to 3 am.

Rare thunderstorm event possible here in Sacramento Monday-Tuesday. Pretty rare for an event, but after all this Summer has been wetter than usual... I wonder why *eh ehm El Nino*.

Only thing the El Niño needs to live right now are some good Westerly Wind Bursts. If you've noticed by now, the lack of WWBs is really choking the El Niño. Of course, the MJO will certainly act up. Do not forget tropical cyclones developing in the future. KWs ahead in time to consider as well.

I'm confused: Does not this MJO pulse signal a possible Kelvin Wave in the near future?

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/ensplume_small.gif Well the MJO is predicted to be active and even possibly mark the onset of yet another Kelvin Wave. Hope to see it comes to light (Washington and Oregon must hate us Californians for loving this El Nino).

Very hot this afternoon it was. Tomorrow I expect peak warming... Mid-late 90's... Then cooling Friday.

No need for WWBs as the pool of unusually warm water has surfaced... Water temperatures at Niño regions are 1°C+ and continuing... This wind map shows a weakening in trade winds, with an already westerly flow in the Niño 4 regions... I believe the heating of the surface turns the easterly trades around into westerlies (as can easily be seen from the Niño 4 region. If we can receive just a little westerly wind nudge, the rest of the subsurface warm pool will surface and and dramatically heat up. This is reminiscent of the heating of April 1997... http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2014/anomnight.4.28.2014.gif While the winds are a chicken and egg type of situation (westerlies aid warm water surfacing; warm water surfacing aids westerlies) I still believe we will take step towards an El Niño state. Good for California's good-for-nothing drought.

Wow! Trade winds at Niño 1 and 2 regions are rapidly moving eastward! We have westerlies forming...!

Sorry for not replying... didn't visit Thewxforums after that post... but today there is a definite thunderstorm chance in the Sierras, mainly south of I-80.

Thunderstorms in North Sac. Valley.

Today the trades pretty much died. That's good news for California.

Big time storm due tomorrow Tuesday... In NorCal. Watch out. Alerts to be issued... *hopes it's not a bust*

Absolute thunderstorms across portions of Central/Northern California valleys today afternoon-evening. We may see a few rotating, but I have doubts as well. There may be a few strong pulse thunderstorms, and maybe even a multi-cell cluster may form.

I have heard the MJO won't give a large effect on the El Nino.

From http://ruc.noaa.gov/hrrr/: "…RAPv2 - occurred at 12z 25 Feb 2014, and HRRR - now planned for July 2014." It seems the one we are looking at is the HRRR, or the High-Resolution Rapid Refresh. They also will demonstrate and test the HRRR during late spring of 2014: "The HRRR is run by NOAA/ESRL/GSD as a real-time demonstration and with operational implementation at NCEP planned for late spring 2014.

The hype probably will continue until any "solid" proof is released. Still, there are some shocking comparisons to the 800mb zonal winds for the past 3 months, and for the same months (January, February, March). In addition, the subsurface pool of much warmer than usual waters is rapidly flowing east, and trying to push itself up to the surface as well. Almost seems like a replica to the pre-1997/98 El Niño environment…

Wait. Has this already been established completely and fully stable? Edit: Research led me to the fact that this system will be released on July 2014.

California had an F0 touch down around woodland in February 28th.

December 3rd 2013 had very low snow levels for Sacramento valley.

Thanks very much!

California looks dry for now. If we get a cold core storm once it gets much hotter though, we may be getting very stormy weather. Remember what happened in California during June 2009 when that cold low passed by? It gave some really severe thunderstorms, at least here in the central valley. Here's an example.

Did you type that out Happ, or where was it from? I like following pro met bloggers.