Warm and sunny weather briefly interrupted on Tuesday
Monday, February 9, 2015
After another sunny and unseasonably warm day today, a storm currently over northwest coast will strongly split as it interacts with what has been a very dominant west coast ridge. There will be snow showers above the valley floor later tonight and Tuesday as the northern part of the splitting wave travels north of the area, with an inch or two likely falling overnight and again during the day. Unfortunately, the southern split looks to stay west of our area as it is forecast to eventually loiter over Baja by Thursday.
A dry wave from the north will graze our area on Wednesday and keep temperatures cooler than they’ve been recently, though they will still be warmer than average.
The west coast ridge quickly rebounds for Thursday and Friday bringing more record or near-record warmth to the area. Another grazing wave from the north will likely knock temperatures back on Saturday before they rebound by Sunday.
There is much forecast uncertainty by early to mid next week as models struggle with the evolution of the west coast ridge as it is attacked by Pacific energy. Additionally, this Pacific energy may or may not interact with the loitering Baja cutoff low and additional waves of energy rotating around the Hudson Bay vortex from the north. This leads to some hope that we may be returning to a snowier pattern sometime next week as the west coast ridge breaks down.
