I’m doing a little radar watching this afternoon. The weather is decidedly not SoCal-ish! It is hot. It is {sigh} sticky. Nearby John Wayne Airport hit 97° with a dew point of 66°–and that’s with a seabreeze!
That’s the kind of heat and humidity we left Connecticut to escape!
This is a good day for me to brush up on my forecasting skills. Weather everywhere is created by the same forces through the same laws of physics. However, most places have special circumstances which make certain types of weather more or less likely.
That’s climatology and it’s helpful to consider while forecasting.
I saw this singular towering cumulus cloud (above) as we drove toward the house this afternoon. It’s on the far side of a mountain range. The mountains, some nearly 6,000 feet tall, are 10-15 miles from here. That big cloud is another 15 miles out.
Radar shows it’s a prodigious rainfall producer. There’s a Severe Thunderstorm Warning plus a Flash Flood Warning for the desert communities it will pass over. Moreno Valley has nearly 200,000 people. It’s not all barren out there.
Because the storms are hardly moving, all the rain will be concentrated in a small area. Flash flooding is a major concern in the desert where rainfall doesn’t seep into the ground as easily as it does in other places and where steep canyon walls funnels water into a few low lying spots.
Most likely there will be no storms where I live. There are mountains between me and the thunder. It’s unlikely (not impossible) any will fire up on the coastal side.
During the winter these mountains will create a rain shadow to the east. Showers here will often fall apart before they get to the desert.
I’ll also be able to look from our bedroom window and see snow on the highest nearby peaks a few times each winter, even when it’s shirtsleeve weather here!
I’ve got to get used to these microclimates if I’m going to stay current as a forecasters.
Yes, the weather here is usually gentler than back east, but there are a huge number of microclimate zones that allow very different weather over a very short space. Knowing them will take practice.