"This is going to help fill that gap in minutes to hours lead time that's vital to know where the heaviest rain is going to hit," Ralph said. "And when and what communities are going to be affected so people in the preparedness community and water resource management community can take action to help protect people's lives and property."
Parts of the Arabian Peninsula and Persian Gulf could be slammed by strong to severe thunderstorms Thursday, bringing the potential for damaging winds, destructive hail and a few tornadoes.
The pattern change began Monday when the barometric pressure surrounding the region started to fall gradually. That increase in low pressure is coming from the southwest and the air is flowing north, opposite of many winter low-pressure systems that dip in from the Pacific Northwest. As a result, light but steady rain is expected to start in Monterey County and the Central Coast late Tuesday morning. The rain is expected to reach the region closer to San Francisco sometime Tuesday night, Murdock said.
While cold-stunned iguanas fall from trees in Florida and videos circulate of frozen "exploding" trees in the Northeast, Southern California is working up a sweat. A midwinter heat wave has descended on much of the state and is expected to spike temperatures as much as 20 degrees above normal in the coming week. The summer-like heat is thanks to a ridge of high pressure lingering high in the atmosphere that extends through the San Francisco Bay Area and into the Pacific Northwest.
It's turned into an unusually dry winter for Northern California, and that pattern, thanks to a ridge of high pressure, is going to continue for at least the first 10 days of February. As the Chronicle meteorology team tells us, the dry and balmy conditions will be with us through Super Bowl Weekend and beyond, continuing a pattern that has left the Sierra snowpack mighty low.
