Light rain coming to Southern California, with much colder temps and mountain snow later this week.
The rain will make an interesting contrast with a new climate regime across the region.
The last time this happened, in February of this year, it was a brutal blizzard that saw a total snow coverage of nearly half-a-mile.
The winter storm was so large and widespread that it had to be named an “unprecedented” major winter storm by the National Weather Service.
Now, after five months, we’re back with the same scenario – another brutal winter storm, with very cold temperatures, heavy snowpack and big river flooding.
But this time, the flooding won’t be coming to our streets.
“This is the first climate system we’ve seen where the rain is actually more dominant than the snow,” said meteorologist Ben Carpino of the National Weather Service in Eureka, Calif.
California has experienced four other snowstorms like this one.
First was in late October – and was the first time in over 80 years that California’s highest snowpack hadn’t been produced by a storm system.
It had been snowing and then there was this brutal storm.
Then came another “unprecedented” storm in late November – this time on the West Coast, but with significant snowfall and flooding.
Then it was a storm that dropped snow on the East Coast – and it was the first time that snow began to fall in the East Coast in January since the end of World War II.
And then in late December, another storm – again, on the West Coast, but this time with very heavy snowfall and massive snowfall accumulations.
In February, the last big storm came down from above the Midwest and swept across California with very heavy winter storms.
It was the storm that dumped so much snow over the Sierra Nevadas that they formed the tallest peak in North America.
It was the storm that brought the highest wind speeds to California since 1918.
And
