Wet, Windy Weather Sweeps Through San Diego

It's another rainy day in San Diego and that is pretty extraordinary. We have had with -- rain week after week since the middle of December -- September --'s December. What kind of weather pattern is sending us this rain and will bring us enough to be a drought? Joining me as Alex with the National Weather Service in San Diego. Welcome. Thank you for having me on. What kind of storm can we expect for the rest of today and tomorrow. What we are looking at right now is a weak little storm bringing is drizzle and light rain. It should taper off tonight but then round two is much heavier that will come in Thursday morning for the commute unfortunately and last really all day and probably into Thursday night. That will be heavier rain. While the County see any snow in that particular weather system? It is a much colder storm so up near 5500 to 6000 feet the top of Palomar or Mount Laguna they may see a little bit maybe an inch or two of slushy snow before it moves on out on Friday. What you expect accumulation to be tomorrow? For rainfall everybody will see a lot of rain. Half inch to an inch even in the San Diego area. That is really beneficial rain. I may come down a little bit too hard so we could see some urban flooding. Where are we in terms of rainfall compared to previous years? This year for San Diego we are up to about six inches of rain and we are neck and neck with where we were this time last year. Last year was the El Niño so when we talked in January last year we had about six inches of rain in San Diego but then it stopped raining. So would -- we did not have much more. Right now we are doing really well. We are above normal close to two inches for an average year. The key will be February and March. It is hard to say what February and March will bring us. We know that there are more storms on the horizon for this month in January. Northern California continues to get slammed by storms. The amount of rainfall has gotten dangerous up there. They are getting the brunt of these storms and the keyword is dangerous. It is excessive rain and snow. Some of the snow totals that they will see in Tahoe when this first series of storms and's tomorrow and Friday we are talking five or six feet on top of the for Pete they saw last week. Avalanche danger and then the rain they are talking about. The rivers are swollen. The reservoirs have a lot of room for capacity. The big reservoirs. The rivers that are uncontrolled that do not have reservoirs or dams on them like the Russian River and areas along the coast those are thankful and in some cases starting to go over the banks because of excessive rain What is the weather pattern that is bringing in all these storms? The weather pattern in itself is not unusual. We are seeing a very strong powerful jet stream bring these storms into the Pacific. This is our rainy season so we are supposed to see that. The difference is that it is persistent. Instead of just being one storm it is one's -- one storm a week later another storm and four days later another storm. The persistence is making a add up and be significant and excessive inside -- some places. We have places in northern California that have seen almost 2 feet of rain. This is the amount area a lot of that will go into Lake or a bill in the Folsom dam or Shasta dam but two feet of rain even in a region that can handle it is excessive. It is the persistent weather pattern that is coming on. We cannot blame it on anything like El Niño or La Niña. In fact El Niño -- La Niña is supposed to bring us a dryer year. Typically it does it is funny how that worked with last year Southern California having another dry year but this year we are on track. The key with the precipitation is it's got to continue throughout the winter because we just can't celebrate after having a few great storms. We can enjoy it though. Everyone has been saying for years that we will need a tremendous amount of rain to reverse the effects of years of drought in California but isn't that exactly what we are getting now Lex I was thinking that the other day. If you look back in 1977 when we had a really bad severe drought not as long as the current drought but it was one and a half years of painful drought. That following year in 78 was really wet. They did not have a lot of flooding they had a big snowpack and no major flooding. We are on pace with what is going on with that. I wish we could predict better be on two weeks. Everybody would. There would be people making so many because they're important decisions for flooding and water supply and management. We are on pace to have a year that could potentially -- maybe not remove the drought entirely but maybe put a big dent and -- and it. Your meeting with emergency officials about the rainfall what are the areas of concern about the city Lex It's the normal urban areas but then it is also those that live or are homeless along the San Diego River that is one main concern. The other area is traffic flow and even coastal erosion. We will see a king tide coming up so we will see some water that is higher than it normally will be with the tides combined with the rain running off. The city is trying to stay proactive. They started two years ago preparing for the El Niño. We had some big events in January 2016 that produced a lot of flooding. They are doing studies where they are looking at -- have a scene more extreme rainfall events? Overall across the country we have. Has that been occurring in San Diego despite the fact that we are in a drought happily been seeing locally heavier rainfall events and the short answer is yet -- yes. Despite the drought we have seen some locally heavier rainfall and we want to be on top of the and be prepared and not surprised. If you prepare just for what is normal you can be surprised. I have been speaking with Alex from the National Weather Service in San Diego. Thank you so much.