CW3E AR Update: 4 November 2022 Outlook

November 4, 2022

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Major Winter Storm Expected to Impact California Early Next Week

• An early-season winter storm is forecast to bring precipitation to much of California, with heavy snow likely in the Sierra Nevada
• Precipitation during this event will be fueled by a combination of strong dynamical forcing downstream of an upper-level trough and upslope moisture flux as the trough interacts with a weakening atmospheric river (AR) currently over the Pacific Northwest
• The heaviest precipitation is forecast over the Sierra Nevada, eastern Transverse Ranges, and Peninsular Ranges, with 3–6 inches of total precipitation expected in these areas
• There is still considerable uncertainty in storm-total precipitation over Central and Southern California, with large differences between the 00Z GFS and 00Z ECMWF models
• Due to low freezing levels, a significant portion of the storm-total precipitation is expected to fall as snow in the watersheds surrounding the Sierra Nevada
• More than 2 feet of snow is forecast over the much of the Sierra Nevada

Click images to see loops of GFS 500-hPa Vorticity & IVT forecasts Valid 1200 UTC 6 November – 1200 UTC 9 November 2022

Summary provided by C. Castellano, C. Hecht, J. Kalansky, S. Roj, and F. M. Ralph; 4 November 2022

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