Strong storm brings rain, snow to California

AccuWeather

AccuWeather California Expert Ken Clark says several storms are in store for California over the next few days that will provide rain and snow across the region.

Transcript

00:00When you look at the satellite picture in the Pacific, the storms are all lined up for California.

00:08Yeah, this is a storm train like, what to call it, with three storms on the map.

00:14There's another one behind that on the other side of the globe that will come in too.

00:18So we have a series of storms coming in. That means rain and snow for California,

00:23which is never a bad thing unless it comes too quickly.

00:26Now, not a big storm for Southern California today, Ken.

00:30No, not a big storm. It's going to produce episodic rainfall.

00:33That's episodes of rain. It won't be raining all the time everywhere,

00:37but there'll be rain around all throughout the day today.

00:40Maybe a half inch or a little bit greater down towards San Diego.

00:44A quarter inch, maybe a half inch around the LA area.

00:47Again, not a lot of rain. Won't affect the burn areas at all, but some beneficial rains.

00:53Let's talk about the next storm. This is more widespread, Ken,

00:56beginning Wednesday, Tuesday night into Wednesday in Northern and Central California.

01:01Yes, this is going to be a much more impactful storm.

01:05Heavy rain with the cold front as it moves through, maybe a thunderstorm too.

01:09Heavy amounts of rain in short periods of time.

01:11Very heavy snow in the Sierra. Sierra's going to be shut down, no doubt about it.

01:15Roads through the Sierra will be shut down with this.

01:18Lizard-like conditions at times. Strong winds ahead of the front and right behind the front.

01:22So we got the awe with this second storm coming in.

01:25One to two inches of rain generally across California, as much as four or five inches in some spots.

01:31And snowfalls three to five feet in the Sierra.

01:34All right, Ken. And then beyond that, we talked about another storm coming in on Friday

01:39that we think by the time we get into Monday, there could be several feet up above 7,000 feet.

01:44This is all good news for the Sierra as we've been making up for lost time.

01:51We have been. It was back in the beginning of January.

01:54We were down in the 30 and 40 percent area for historical average for Central and Southern Sierra.

02:00We're now up in the mid-70s. We're going to be even higher than that before these storms are done.

02:04Again, we have another storm due on Friday, another storm due on Sunday, Monday.

02:10So we're going to really pack in the snow in the Sierra,

02:12and that means more water for those reservoirs as we go into the spring and summer.

02:18Yeah, really quickly, those reservoirs are stacked, Ken.

02:21This is good news. Short-term drought, but not much of a water shortage for California.

02:26That's great news.

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