Speaker 1: (00:01)
San Diego is preparing for a major storm to hit the region late Monday, bringing with it much needed rain and snow, but also high winds and maybe lightning as well, but extreme weather and other parts of the country has been the main story as deadly tornadoes hit six states across the Midwest national weather service. Meteorologist Alex tar joins me to talk more about the storm and what's been happening in other parts of the country. Alex, welcome.
Speaker 2: (00:27)
Hi, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1: (00:28)
So there is a storm on its way after making its way through Northern California. What should we expect?
Speaker 2: (00:34)
Yeah, we do have a storm on its way and we can safely call it a storm. It has a lot of cold air coming down from the Gulf of Alaska. It's tapped into tropical moisture, which is an atmospheric river to the south. And in between all that, there's a lot of wind or energy. So it looks like that storm, which brought already two feet of snow to lake Tahoe will continue to producing a lot of rain and snow to Northern California. And it'll slowly come southward and be right over us on Tuesday.
Speaker 1: (01:08)
And how long is the storm expected to last
Speaker 2: (01:11)
Overall? I think the effects from this particular storm will only be one day 24 hours, but when it comes in, it'll be noticeable in terms of how it rains on Tuesday. The snow that we get in our mountains, such as big bear and right wood, and even a little snow in the San Diego mountains. And then also the wind, uh, the wind that will be accompanying the heavy rain on Tuesday. You might even have a clap of thunder along with that heavy rain. So this is by far the strongest storm we've seen this year and probably you could track it all the way back to the storms we had late January of last year. If you can remember that, Hmm.
Speaker 1: (01:55)
November was the driest. It had been in decades, uh, will this storm help with the lack of rainfall we've had?
Speaker 2: (02:01)
Yeah. So this is the type of winter. We more are less expected. So during drought years, like we're currently under and also during LA years, which is the cold phase in the Equa Pacific ocean. We tend to have very extreme sporadic storm systems that move through. Now, will this be enough as a drop Buster? Definitely not, but this is the type of storm that'll put us back to near average for this year. Cuz as you mentioned, November saw zero precipitation. And
Speaker 1: (02:32)
Is there anything local residents should be thinking about in preparation of the storm?
Speaker 2: (02:37)
Yeah. You gotta take this type of storm serious because it'll be accompanied by high winds, uh, enough to knock over true breeze. Tuesday afternoon, it'll be accompanied by heavy rain, uh, enough to cause flooding on streets it'll cause enough rain where, you know, the low lying areas will have standing water. The travel will be difficult. We do even think, you know, the San Diego river will have a rapid rise Tuesday afternoon and early evening. And then even as the storm moves through Tuesday night, we're gonna see a change over to snow above 5,000 feet in our mountain areas. And
Speaker 1: (03:16)
You mentioned topple trees does the risk for, or that increase when you have a ground that's saturated with so much rain and the high winds. Yeah,
Speaker 2: (03:23)
It does. Um, so when the rain's coming down on Tuesday and then when it really picks up Tuesday afternoon and you have bursts of heavy rain and then you have wind at the same time, you know, a lot of our trees, um, even some of our larger trees when they get saturated with rain on, on their canopy. And when the ground, as you mentioned, gets saturated, it makes 'em that much more susceptible to those bursts of wind
Speaker 1: (03:52)
On Friday, uh, Kentucky, as well as other neighboring states were hit by very destructive and deadly tornadoes. How, how rare is it for there to be tornadoes of such ferocity, especially in December. That is, that is a rare, uh, thing to happen in the Midwest. Yeah,
Speaker 2: (04:08)
It is. The tornado event will likely go down to the history books is probably the worst one we've ever seen in December. The combination of record warm temperatures, they were ex experiencing on Friday, uh, plenty of moisture and just a vigorous storms system in itself that moved through was the ingredients for unprecedented tornado activity in that part of the country. You know, we often think of tornadoes in the spring, right? Uh, April may, and maybe not so much in the, they're not unheard of in the winter, but to have an outbreak that large with tornadoes that intense with wind speeds over 150 miles per hour, that is remarkable. And yet another example of extreme weather events that we've been seeing, Hmm
Speaker 1: (04:56)
Is, is this an example of climate change?
Speaker 2: (04:59)
Uh, potentially. Uh, so some of the climate change indications are that, you know, the tornado alley area is shifting to the east, uh, that it's being extended, you know, into the winter, you know, with the warmer temperatures, warmer air, more energy, it's a lot like, you know, looking at our wildfires in California or some other flood events, you know, the seasons shifting a little bit extending or you're seeing more extreme events in different types of the year. We
Speaker 1: (05:28)
Saw the tornadoes in the Midwest. We don't see that type of weather here. Why is that?
Speaker 2: (05:33)
Uh, the biggest thing in California is we don't have the Gulf of Mexico. So the Gulf of Mexico is of warm body of water. It provides a lot of energy, you know, that drives those type of events. It's not necessarily the terrain, it's not necessarily, uh, other factors or even our latitude we're right in the prime latitude. It's the lack of very moist conditions that are, you know, just common out of the Gulf of Mexico. So we get the cold air, we sometimes get the wind speed and what we call wind shear. We don't always get and very rarely get the situation where we have that rich, moist Gulf air coming up from the south.
Speaker 1: (06:18)
I've been speaking with national weather service, meteorologist Alex tardy, Alex, thank you
Speaker 2: (06:23)
So much. Thanks for having me on today.
