A mild La Nina has dominated our weather pattern so far this rain season. For this reason, I was quite skeptical when computer forecasts showed rain for this weekend. However, the computers continue to show rain heading this way, so it's impossible to ignore.
The satellite loop below shows a chaotic pattern over the Pacific. There's a decaying large system north of Hawaii and another vortex spinning far off the coast of the Pacific Northwest. I'm keeping an eye up north, where eventually a piece of energy will dive southward out of the Gulf of Alaska and buckle the upper level flow pattern (the jet stream).
A system will emerge and bring us showers by Saturday afternoon and evening. Intermittent showers will then be possible through the day on Sunday. This system is somewhat moisture-starved, so rain totals will be limited. Regardless, we'll take what we can get.
Isolated showers will persist into Monday as the core of the system settles overhead. There's enough instability in the air to support isolated thunderstorms, which could bring a brief heavy downpour and possibly some small hail.
The rain chance diminishes Tuesday morning. Snow levels will dip low enough on Monday for some snow in local San Diego mountains. Levels could dip to 3,500 during that time period. Be sure to keep an eye on road conditions if you plan to travel in higher elevations on Sunday and Monday.
I've posted the computer projected rain and snow totals below.
I'm also keeping an eye on another small system around the 2-5 to 2-8 time frame, though this is far away and the overall weather pattern is a dry one. We'll see!
