Sunday's storm added more rain to Southern California's unexpectedly wet water year totals, and more snow to the Sierra snowpack. This rain season western storms have reduced drought classifications by as much as three steps in some areas of California and four in Arizona.

As of February 4, Downtown Los Angeles (USC- KCQT) has recorded 12.13 inches of rain since July 1-- about 4.5 inches above normal for the date. Here is an archived PDF of a NWS Public Information Statement with some preliminary rainfall totals for Sunday's storm.

Sierra snow course measurements for February 1 are coming in and manual measurements are confirming what automatic snow sensors have already reported -- that the Sierra snowpack is well above normal for the date.

Will the wet western weather continue? The GFS and ECMWF medium range models, and NCEP and PSD ensembles are forecasting a generally quiescent, rain free period for Southern California over the next several days, and into the extended period. Today's NWS 6-10 Day and 8-14 Day Precipitation Outlooks for Southern California are indicating Below Normal precipitation.

However, there are suggestions (see Atmospheric Insights) that sometime around February 15-20, the currently active MJO may more or less phase with the GWO, and amplify La Nina to produce a energetic, extended Pacific jet and west coast trough, similar to what occurred around January 3, 2008. We'll see!

More information concerning Southern California weather can be found using our WEATHER LINKS page.