A collection of low-pressure techniques packing chilly air straight from Canada has introduced low-elevation snow and a uncommon blizzard warning for Southern California’s mountains. Now, as if so as to add an exclamation level to the freakiness of this week’s climate, there was thundersnow within the Southland — and extra might be on the way in which.
A climate spotter close to the Devore neighborhood of San Bernardino reported listening to thunder Thursday as a very chilly and unstable a part of a collection of storms moved by the San Bernardino Mountains, in response to Alex Tardy, a meteorologist with the Nationwide Climate Service in San Diego.
Thunderstorms are much less frequent within the winter, however typically lightning and thunder can happen in a snowstorm. This dramatic and pretty uncommon phenomenon is named thundersnow, and it normally accompanies intense storms. Wintertime thunder could be more durable to listen to than in a summer season storm due to the muffling impact of the snow, however it’s the results of the identical mechanics contained in the storm cloud.
Thundersnow was reported with heavy snow that blanketed Buffalo, N.Y., in November, for instance. Residents reported lightning flashes within the sky as snow piled up on the bottom. If it’s unusual in Buffalo, which is thought for heavy lake-effect snow, it’s rather more uncommon in Southern California, the place any snow is a rarity.
A low-pressure system will drop down alongside the West Coast and faucet into an atmospheric river, bringing heavy rain and low-elevation snow to Southern California.
(Paul Duginski / Los Angeles Occasions)
Extra thundersnow could also be potential Saturday. A late-morning satellite tv for pc picture Friday exhibits the primary occasion: a strong low-pressure system dropping down the California Coast and tapping right into a weak atmospheric river of moisture from the Pacific Ocean. Heavy snow and gusty winds with this storm will create harmful circumstances within the mountains by the weekend, the Nationwide Climate Service stated.
A snowstorm intensifies into the blizzard class when winds attain 35 mph with snow and blowing snow, and visibility declines to lower than a quarter-mile for 3 hours or extra. A extreme blizzard means winds exceeding 45 mph with low visibility and temperatures of 10 levels Fahrenheit or decrease. When winds blow round snow that has already fallen, that known as a “floor blizzard.” And there’ll already be snow to blow round when the primary low middle arrives.
The satellite tv for pc picture additionally exhibits the popcorn-like clouds over the ocean, indicative of an intense, chilly storm, justifying the primary blizzard warning issued by the climate service for Southern California since 1989.
Early Saturday, the low-pressure system will probably be centered west of the Channel Islands. Because it strikes east throughout the coast and inland, circumstances will make thundersnow doubtless within the mountains of Southern California, Nationwide Climate Service meteorologist Eric Boldt stated.
“With the atmospheric river as nicely, typically we get a number of strikes, since there may be a lot moisture depth however little instability,” Tardy stated. The core of the chilly upper-level low-pressure system transferring in Saturday morning can be the time to observe for thundersnow, he stated.
