After weeks of winter storms, the atmospheric rivers that have been inundating California look to finally dry up a bit. However, today is another dangerously wet day with 2-4″ of rain and as much as 2′ of snow in the mountains forecasted. You can see plenty of flood and winter warning areas on this map below.
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Other parts of the Southwest are also under fire with a foot of snow possible over Nevada and Utah with 8″ to18″ in Arizona. Even West Texas is under wind advisories for 25-35 mph winds gusting to 50 mph.
If there is any upside to all this rain and snow, it’s that California so desperately needs the rain. Last Thursday’s drought monitor for them has virtually NO red areas indicating extreme or exceptional drought! That’s the first time in years.
Technically, there are still abnormally dry areas to even severe drought, but this should also improve in time when snow melt occurs later this year. Lake Mead levels courtesy of water-data.com are also improving.
So, when does the spigot really turn off? While today is a mess, it looks like a couple of dry days before more rain Thursday. After that, dry weather prevails for the rest of the month. Here’s the American (GFS) model:
In the meantime, our weather in Houston gets a little rocky on Wednesday with mild weather today and tomorrow! Enjoy the MLK holiday and parades!
Frank
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