Southern California Weather Force has issued a Flood Watch effective overnight on Wednesday and into Thursday for all areas south and west of the mountains, including all local mountain areas and parts of the High Desert as well, including assigning this system a category five out of six on the Southern California Weather Force intensity scale. 100 MPH wind gusts are expected on the Gorman Pass on Wednesday into Thursday as the bomb cyclone intensifies off the California Coast, and as such Southern California Weather Force has also issued the rare Hurricane Wind Speed Warning so read on for the details and see the rain and wind models for Wednesday’s rain passage and the flood risk model for Thursday …
At the current time, satellite images continue to see a deepening low-pressure center about 1000 miles off the California Coast, moving fast to the east toward the forecast area. Pre-frontal rainfall will move over the Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange County, and parts of San Diego County north to the Inland Empire on Wednesday, starting in the morning. Some of the rainfall will be heavy at times, especially from Santa Barbara County to about Downtown Los Angeles. Areas between there will be the target zone for this first round along the cold front.
Also on Wednesday, the bomb cyclone will be placed northwest of the forecast area, which will suck in low-level winds out of the southeast. These winds will impact the mountains of Kern and Ventura, with the entire county zones of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo being affected as well. This is High Wind Warning criteria in these areas, but I did issue the rare Hurricane Wind Speed Warning for the Cuddy Valley, including the top of the Gorman Pass. As shown in the Southern California Weather Force wind models below, the blue shade is a Level 8, the highest in the Raiden Storm Wind Intensity Scale. I did decide to add a 7th image to the wind models that zoom into this alert zone, which also includes Pine Mountain Club.
The flood risk models here at Southern California Weather Force for Thursday has prompted me to issue the official Flood Watch as well. These locations include, SLO, SBA, VT, LA, OC, SD County, north through the Inland Empire, and off into the Hesperia, Lancaster, and all of the Kern County zones as well. This will stop short of Barstow to the north and Palm Springs to the east, where far less rainfall will fall in those areas.
The highest risk will be the pending Flood Emergency zone for the Santa Barbara area. If you are there, you should take tomorrow with the weaker warm front to get everything ready as a Flood Emergency will pose the greatest threat to life, property, and travel. Flood Warning criteria expands through the population zones of Ventura, SLO, LA, OC, and parts of the Inland Empire zones, mainly from Fontana to Corona/Lake Elsinore along Interstate 15. The yellow indication on the flood risk model is the pending Flood Advisory product. While you will see advisory level street flooding, it is a lower risk for damaging flood conditions. This expands for most of the Inland Empire, High Desert, Kern County, and San Diego County areas.
As you can see from the Flood Risk Model below, this system will clearly affect areas from OC/LA westward more than south and eastward. As such, this system has been assigned a Category Five, which like a hurricane means that some of you are in that category, and others on the outskirts. The center of Category Five conditions will be Santa Barbara, which means debris flows as well.
High Winds will accompany the frontal zone in all areas, which means in the metros you will have the risk of trees and power poles falling down. This can and will affect some of you with a loss of power.
LONG RANGE: As stated in the Long-Range Weather Advisory, a secondary atmospheric river event will happen after a lull in activity when this current storm departs, targeting next week into mid-month. This is the second Raiden Storm Pattern, dubbed the Raiden Storm Pattern of January 2023 when it hits.
Southern California Weather Force will officially finalize the flood areas on Wednesday, when the warm front precipitation is in progress. rain and wind models will be updated for the main part of the coming system. But for now, the rain and wind models are only updated for Wednesday’s warm front.
Below are the SCWF models for rain, snow, and wind for this event. Click here to view the link where they are located. Scroll down to the bottom of the writing.
Join the Facebook Page for Further Updates If You Have Not Yet!
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WEATHER FORCE MAIN:
Southern California Weather Force Twitter – CLICK HERE
- Raiden Storm -
Master General Meteorologist – is a consulting meteorologist for over 50 different companies, including energy, agriculture, aviation, marine, leisure, and many more areas. He has certs from Mississippi State for broadcast met and Penn State forecasting certs MET 101, 241, 341 and 361 as a meteorologist, but before then was completely self-taught, barely learning a thing from the schools that he did not already know.
Both short and long-range is very important to know in those jobs so you can bet on accuracy here. He is versed in fields like Western USA, Tornadoes, Floods, Hurricanes, High Winds, Fire Behavior, Snow and Blizzards, Short Range, Long Range, Seasonal, and Life-Threatening decisions with over 20 years' experience, out forecasting all weather services available today with lead-time and precision, which makes him a focus of ridicule and envy.
NOTE: Alerts are posted on here, be it a tornado watch, etc, and these alerts are issued from this office and nowhere else. At times, which is often, you will see an alert forecast posted on here that you do not see elsewhere.
Comments / 25