Storms on the West Coast

[jetsetter]

So who is experiencing them at the moment?

Active weather began yesterday across the Western States with 80 mph winds over parts of the Cascades, a 117 mph wind report from the Sierra, and nearly a foot of snow over some northern California Mountains.

Today, the strongest in a series of storm systems is plowing into the West, with its impacts spreading far inland to the Rockies this weekend. Potentially historic snowfall, flooding rains, and winds gusts to well over 100 mph are possible.

Rain is becoming widespread and heavy from coastal areas of the Pacific Northwest through western California. Flash flooding is likely along the entire California coast.

Rainfall amounts through the weekend of 1 to 2 inches will fall over western Washington and Oregon, with 2 to 5 inches over much of western California, including Redding, Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. As much as a foot of rain could fall on some western facing slopes of the mountains just inland from the coast.

Snow levels will come up a bit today, as warmer air briefly advances into the area ahead of the storm system. However, levels will plummet starting this afternoon through Saturday morning with levels reaching valley floors over northern California.

Up to a foot of snow will fall in parts of the Cascades of Washington and Oregon. In the mountains of California, hourly snowfall rates could reach 6 to 8 inches. Snow accumulations between 2 feet (valley floors) and locally 12 feet (ridge tops) will bury the Sierra by the end of the weekend. White-out, blizzard conditions will make any travel through the Siskiyou and Sierra Mountains deadly.

Across California from north of Los Angeles to the Oregon border, damagingly strong wind gusts will range from between 50 and 65 mph at the lowest elevations to as high as between 150 and 200 mph at the ridge tops of the Sierra. Strong and damaging winds will also impact western Washington and most of Oregon, where winds could gust over 60 mph.

Swells along the Washington, Oregon and northern California coasts will peak between 30 and 35 feet overnight and high surf warnings have been issued. Snow and damaging wind will increase through interior parts of the West this weekend, impacting Nevada, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, and the Colorado Rockies. Several feet of snow could fall at the higher elevations with wind gusts to over 70 or 80 mph.

Also of significance, will be some rain and snow that work across parts of Arizona and New Mexico this weekend.

http://www.weather.com/newscenter/st...=wxcenter_news

[Peter3hg]

I'm on the West Coast and it's pissing it down, but then again, when isn't it pissing it down around here.

[Goose+]

Sounds like global warming to me.

[cvrefugee]

And I just washed my car...

[Blind_Io]

Oh, baby, Salt Lake is gonna get POUNDED with powder.

oh, wait, I don't have time to ski this year. FUCK!

[LurkerPatrol]

I'm down in San Diego, spending the time with my parents. I'm really not looking forward to going back to Berkeley this weekend, I don't want to go back and see my apartment building go down lol.

I'm just kidding, it seems pretty bad up there and I pray that everyone stays and is safe through all this.

San Diego is getting a lot of overcast and is getting a bit chillier, so I suspect it will start coming down pretty soon down here as well.

Good luck to everyone. Stay at home, stay safe, grab a cup of hot chocolate and curl up in a blanket. This is the best time to do it

[Viper007Bond]

Meh, it's just rain. Okay, so it is quite windy here right now (about to go see if I can find my garbage can -- it's probably 4 blocks away), but it's nothing like the storm we had a few weeks ago.

[Gman333-X-ferrari]

Right now it's a mild 30 degrees Celsius with a forecast top of 33 degrees in Melbourne. I.E It's friggin' hot! Wouldn't mind a bit of that rain to cool us down a bit.

[NecroJoe]

My day sucked. I had to spend the whole day, in Palo Alto, starting at 6:00AM, in the alley behind my store, working on breaking down (and trying to keep dry in the wind-tunnel that is our alley) 40 pallets of merchandise. Add to that the 5-6 times I had to get down on my hands and knees in 4" water to clear out the storm drain behind our store with a screw driver to prevent floods in the store, and climb up to the roof twice to clear out the roof drains.

What a wonderful day.

Oh, and the wind also knocked two gallons of paint off of a ledge, spilling most on my less-than-a-month-old-shoes.

I miss the snow of the Midwest. If there was a bad storm coming, they would have cancelled the shipments. :-p

[Red_Bull]

Originally Posted by Gman333-X-ferrari

Right now it's a mild 30 degrees Celsius with a forecast top of 33 degrees in Melbourne. I.E It's friggin' hot! Wouldn't mind a bit of that rain to cool us down a bit.

38 over here. I have the A/C on full bore and have settled back with some lunch and a beer to watch the cricket.

[.cmd]

Here it's 22, with rain. Its not forcast to get over 30 for the next 7 days, this damn global warming.

[Jacobfox]

I flew into SFO from Narita today and the winds were so high that they couldn't offload the bags for 2.5 hrs because the carts were getting blown over. And my neighbor's wrought iron fence bent in half by two trees.

[jetsetter]

Finally got to another computer. The power at my home has been out for about 27 hours, fucking sucks.

[Zuhaib]

Well today is not as bas as yesterday in SF, its just light rain right now. Yesterday was the real storm for us, lost power in the morning for a good few hours, my neighbors fence came down that faces the street and a few of the small trees i had pretty much fell down. Also the beach looked like it was just all water.
I took some pic's while driving around town with the family, here they are: http://flickr.com/photos/zuhaib/sets/72157603634257774/

On a car note, at first i was driving in the GTI and going the freeway almost did not seem safe with the wind and the amount of standing water (the fact it has 18in rims with Summer time dont help) but in the Merc i swear you could tell if there was a storm or not on the outside.

[Viper007Bond]

Seems you guys are getting the worst of it. It's just a little rain (oh noes!!!1) and a lotta wind up here.

[argatoga]

Originally Posted by Viper007Bond

Seems you guys are getting the worst of it. It's just a little rain (oh noes!!!1) and a lotta wind up here.

Yea, it is the same up here at the Usian/Kanukian boarder (Bellingham, WA).

[Viper007Bond]

Originally Posted by argatoga

Yea, it is the same up here at the Usian/Kanukian boarder (Bellingham, WA).

Hey hey, my aunt and uncle live up there!

[Loz]

Originally Posted by Peter3hg

I'm on the West Coast and it's pissing it down, but then again, when isn't it pissing it down around here.

Same here really.

Apparently we were supposed to have snow in the new year, i haven't seen any yet. Maybe another Michael Fish moment

[jetsetter]

Apparently the power is to come back on Monday or Tuesday. Seems that 70 poles were blown over.

[BerserkerCatSplat]

Originally Posted by jetsetter

Apparently the power is to come back on Monday or Tuesday. Seems that 70 poles were blown over.

You got some friends or family you can stay with until then?