An Atmospheric River pointed at Northern California brought many of us steady moderate to heavy rain last night into this morning.
The main source of moisture is shifting to our east later this morning and we’ll be left with cool and unstable air giving us scattered showers and possible thunderstorms. Scattered snow showers down to 4,000 to 5,000 feet will impact mountain travel especially for the mountain passes east of I-5.
We’re dry on Christmas day but there may be some low clouds and fog in some areas before the next round of rain arrives Christmas night into Thursday. Snow levels on Thursday could drop to as low as 3,500 feet and will once again cause travel delays in the mountains. Here is a quick link to the road conditions page at Weather NorCal: https://weathernorcal.com/road-conditions/
We’re keeping it wet Friday and through the weekend with continued off and on rain showers and snow levels around 6,000 feet.
It should also be noted that the ground is very saturated and any rain we see moving forward could lead to flooding issues along with mudslides and debris flows the rest of the week and through the weekend. As of this writing, highway 36W is BLOCKED, approximately 4 miles west of Paynes Creek, due to a rockslide.
At this point, it looks like a drier trend as we go into next week.
