What happened to winter? Believe it or not, these extended dry periods during any winter is normal and not out of the ordinary. Even exceptionally strong El Niño years have had long dry periods, 1982-83 had a 23 day dry spell and 1997-98 El Niño had an 18 day stretch without any rain. We are currently at 10 days of being dry in Nevada City so we are still well within climate norms. Hopefully this coming week will change all that.

Weekly Forecast:
The coming week will start out dry, but huge changes are on the way as a wet weather patterns set up across the eastern Pacific, bringing us the possibility of some decent rain and sierra snow. We may see 1-2" of rain by Friday evening with up to 15" of snow above 7000ft with the snow level eventually falling to near 4000ft behind the cold front on Friday morning. This storm will likely impact Sierra travel all the way down to Mammoth Lakes bringing snowy conditions along Hwy395 for those NCSA students and parents heading to Death Valley. Always carry chains and be ready for winter driving conditions when heading above 4000ft.

*Statewide Sierra snow pack is at around 100% of normal for this date!

Weekly Rain and Snow for Nevada City

Rainfall so far Today
0.00"

Rainfall This Week
0.00"

Rainfall This Month
0.12"

Rain in Nevada City since July 1st 2015
29.50"

Snowfall in Nevada City so far this season
1"

El Niño update: An overall quiet period over much of the west coast as the east coast got most of the winter weather over the past 10 days or so. Global forecast models are now fairly certain of a major build up of storminess starting this week with a  stronger set of storms late February and continuing through March.

EL Niño impacts: Climatologists say we are experiencing of one the strongest El Niños on record. During strong El Niños, the subtropical jet stream that brings wet storms to southern Mexico and Central America moves northward, creating a constant flow of storms over Southern California. Only exceptionally strong El Niños are powerful enough to shift the entire jet stream to cover Northern California, giving the southern California double its rainfall and Northern California double the Sierra snowpack if not more, Those severe El Niños last hit in 1982-83 and 1997-98.

The latest weekly El Niño indices are listed below. El Niño is HERE! Conditions are present and it will last into early spring 2016.

Current Pacific Ocean Temps Above Normal

Niñ0 4 region
+1.5°C

Niño 3.4 region
+2.6°C

Niño 3 region
+2.2°C

Niño 1+2 regions
+1.2°C

February - April Precipitation and Temperature Outlook: WET AND MILD TO CONTINUE!

My BloomSky this afternoon!

The storm track will dip south into NorCal by Wednesday!!

The jet stream will bring us a good chance of rain and Sierra snow by Wednesday .

Forecast models are very confident in dropping a good sized storm into NorCal this week.

The precipitation outlook map for the coming week is looking wet across much of NorCal. 

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