February 18, 2020 – Dry and mild conditions continue this week, except for a slight chance of showers over the northern Sierra south of Tahoe on Friday.
Discussion
Partly cloudy skies cover the region early this morning. Lingering north to east surface pressure gradient remains across the region (MFR-SAC still around 7 mbs while the RNO-SAC is close to 4 mbs) which is resulting in gusts of 15-25 mph across portions of the Sacramento Valley and surrounding foothills, with local gusts around 40 mph continuing near the mouth of the Feather River Canyon.
Dry and mild weather will continue this week, though temperatures will be down a few degrees from Mondays highs. North winds will also persist much of week, though they won’t be as breezy as Monday as gradients slacken. Next upstream trough forecast to split, with most of the energy headed toward SoCal, as it approaches the West Coast late in the week. The northern Sierra south of Tahoe may see a few showers ahead of the system on Friday.
Extended Discussion (Saturday through Tuesday)
We will see quiet weather for the start of the extended period as we will be under short wave ridging. Ridging pushes to the east late Saturday into Sunday as a trough tracks into the PacNW. Models have continued the trend of keeping this trough north and east of us and the WPC clusters favor a drier solution. Still could see some light showers on Sunday as a cold front pushes through NorCal but have trended PoPs down and may see this trend continue. Best shower chances will be in the higher elevations and the impacts with this look very low. Northerly winds increase on Monday as the trough pushes to our east. We will see mild temperatures for the start of the period but cold air builds into NorCal on Monday with highs returning to near normal in the Valley and below normal in the higher elevations.