This is a single four-panel image discussion so read on for those details on what image means what. You can comment below your thoughts on it if you wish. If you’re in a rain-shadowed area, these will be valuable.
Just like the weather, here at Southern California Weather Force things are ever-changing to make things better and more accurate. Within the last month’s storm systems I have taken their dynamics and went ahead and made the localized models even higher resolution. The goal was to show rain-shadowed areas being less than non rain-shadowed areas.
Rain-shadowed areas is like when storms come from say southwest and go northeast, the Santa Ana Mountains block some of the moisture. This means that in Rancho Santa Margarita you could see much more rain than say Menifee or Perris. S Santiago Peak blocks some moisture and brings less rainfall to a lot of residents in the Inland Empire as a result.
The two top images is the before and after of this algorithm change. You can see it has a higher resolution for storm cell tracks and rain-shadows on the upper right image, which is the after.
SNOW – Same with the snow. I need to fine tune sticking snow in High Desert areas. Using this storm as the last algorithm push, the before (lower left) was too strong for sticking snow, even if flakes were reported and falling. The lower right is going to be how the new algorithm works. It eliminated the Victorville areas and kept a dusting up near the pass with Phelan obviously getting more. It also outlines the rim of the mountains much better. It took out areas in the SFV/SCV upper elevations as well.
So this did much better and this new algorithm will be what will be used from now on, the next system into the region by Tuesday.
The new algorithm should push SCWF products and forecast percentages up so I am excited to try this out for the system this coming week. Premium website members, this is being coded into the website as we speak by myself.
That is it… Again thank you for following Southern California Weather Force… if new … Welcome – I will be entering hibernation mode now, which means you won’t hear from me until we near the next storm system so take care.