The Sierra Nevada mountains of California and Nevada are experiencing a rare extreme blizzard this weekend with incredible amounts of snow and strong winds forecast through Sunday including major travel corridors like Interstate 80 over Donner Summit and the Lake Tahoe area. Storm total snowfall may approach 11 feet (3.4 m) in some spots and […]
Two tornadoes confirmed in California on Wednesday, strongest in area since before 1950
A line of strong storms associated with a low pressure system crossing California and a cold front moving down the coast on Wednesday afternoon produced two tornadoes in San Luis Obispo County just before 16:00. This area is located on the coast about 160 miles (260 km) west of Los Angeles. After a damage survey […]
Low to bring atmospheric river and mix of other hazards to California through Tuesday
A low pressure system moving toward California is forecast to bring a broad swath of weather hazards to the region through Tuesday. Most notably, the path of the low as it moves toward San Francisco and then north up the West Coast will result in the cold front boundary and associated moisture plume being aimed […]
Upper level low spinning clouds, isolated t-storms in Tuesday
Tri-Cities weather – May 2, 2023 A strong upper level low pressure system centered near San Francisco this morning is driving the weather pattern over the Pacific Northwest today. In the Columbia Basin, this is likely to produce intermittent clouds and sun along a fairly narrow band. Previously, temperatures were forecast to reach into the […]
Smoke from California wildfires headed for the Pacific Northwest; fire danger east of the Cascades starting Wednesday
The weather pattern that is forecast to bring excessive heat to the Pacific Northwest for much of this week may also bring wildfire smoke into the region from fires burning in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. As of Monday morning, the largest smoke maker out of these is the Oak Fire burning near Yosemite National Park. […]
It won’t be a hurricane, but it will be as strong as one
There is still quite a bit of uncertainty surrounding the low-pressure system that is expected to approach the Oregon and Northern California Coast on Tuesday. What isn’t uncertain, though, is how strong this thing is going to be. The National Weather Service (NWS) has Hurricane Force Wind Warnings for a wide area of the Pacific […]
Sediment transport in Death Valley
Author’s Note: This part of a weekly series on geology for a class I am taking this semester at BYU-Idaho. This week’s prompt required students to go outside, take a photo showing an example of sediment transport and explain what is going on. Other posts from this assignment can be found under the “Geology 111” […]
Warm system for Thanksgiving week
An atmospheric river is set up to douse almost the entire West Coast. Raising freezing levels today and tomorrow will aid Thanksgiving travelers the next couple of days, keeping snow off of the major passes. By midnight Monday night, the freezing level in much of Oregon will be above 9,000 feet with freezing levels remaining near […]
Record breaking heat for Southern California
Here I am, sitting in my apartment outside Reno where the temperature is in the 70s and my wife is already listening to Christmas music, but in the Los Angeles and San Diego areas record-setting heat is sending the region above 100 in many places. Yesterday, downtown Los Angeles marked down a high of 102º. […]
Watching Weather Balloons on Ham Radio
UC Berkeley’s Amateur Radio Club (archive) and the East Bay Amateur Radio Club (archive) in California launched a balloon with a tracking device Saturday, which allowed radio amateurs to see how far the balloon went, how high it went and how fast it was going. After launching the balloon on the UC Berkeley campus, the […]