Doing the Splits: El Nino-Style | Forecasting Kitsap

A resident improvises a sandbag with a trash bag and mud that washed down his road in the Tijuana area of Los Angeles on Wednesday.

Yeah…so…remember that firehose that was pointed at us since day one of this month? Well, it wasn’t done, but thanks to El Nino’s strong influence, CA is getting in on the fun. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

As promised, this week has featured much less in the way of rain and much more in the way of sunshine, something many of you have been asking for. Of course, that other “something” is lowland snow and all I can say by looking at the models is “yikes…” as temperatures will remain too warm for the next 16 days to provide any exciting precipitation.

So why the sun all of a sudden? As expected by this time of year during strong El Nino’s, the jet stream splits and dives well to the south and north of us, though the more pronounced effects are being felt in California where major flooding and mudslides have been occurring as rainstorms pound the area day after day. This is not unusual in an El Nino year, however. The unusual part is the massive amount of rain WE have received.

We’ve also had persistent storms coming in from the south, bringing very mild air with it. Temperatures are already averaging more than 6 degrees warmer than normal.

Things won’t change too dramatically as tomorrow through Sunday look like a repeat performance of this week so far: partly sunny skies, highs in the 50s with occasional rain light rain. We do crank the rain and cloud cover back up as temperatures go down next week meaning snow in the mountains and a cool rain down here.

Enjoy that sunshine, folks! The Californians will be more than happy to trade by next week 😉

Matthew Leach

Forecasting Kitsap

Questions? Comments? E-mail me at: forecastingkitsap@live.com

7 DAY FORECAST (Note: Thanks to commenter “Matt C.” who helped provide the new graphics for my forecast map. I’ve been in the process of updating some software, so that’s why my 7 day maps haven’t been appearing much lately.)