GOING BACK TO CANI! DUH!

13 new! Get your a$$ in gear. Be at the lifts by 7:55! ;)

Total rainfall amounts of more than 75 mm are likely over a two day period with greater amounts of 150 mm or more for west and Inland Vancouver Island. In the Whistler area the precipitation will likely fall as wet snow early Thursday before switching over to rain. Significant additional rainfall is likely for the South Coast on Saturday.

Where's Mindo?

January 2015 was an extraordinarily dry month across most of California. Across the northern 2/3 of the state, there was almost no precipitation to speak of–and in the Bay Area, no measurable rainfall whatsoever occurred at most observation sites. Numerous locations set new records for the lowest January precipitation ever recorded, and quite a few of those records are truly “all time” records–it is strictly impossible to ever receive less than 0.00 inches of precipitation. San Francisco’s precipitation record, in particular, goes back to the Gold Rush era (1850), and January 2015’s grand total of 0.00 inches broke the previous record of 0.06 inches–which was set just a year ago (2014) at the height of the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge. This is especially remarkable given that January is the climatological peak of the rainy season in the Bay Area. Further, the present mid-winter dry spell (which is almost certain to end later this week) will go down in the record books as one of the three longest in San Francisco history.

The culprit: a persistent, strong region of high pressure anchored over the northeastern Pacific/West Coast of North America has deflected Pacific storm systems to the north of California–just like last year. In fact, the similarity of the large-scale atmospheric wave pattern between January 2014 and January 2015 is extraordinary. While the longevity of the current dry spell still isn’t quite what it was last year–thanks to our December wet spell–the Warm West/Cool East atmospheric pattern that has been quite common in recent winters appears to once again be repeating itself this year.