At a Glance
- A wetter pattern is shaping up for California this week.
- This will bring rain and mountain snow to parts of the state, including Southern California.
- It's a kickoff to the state's wet season, which lasts into spring.
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California will turn wetter this week with the first widespread rain of the season in both Los Angeles and the Bay Area.
When will this happen? This will be a slow-moving event and likely won't wrap up until this weekend.
- Northern California: Rain began Tuesday and will linger at times into the weekend.
- Southern California: Began Wednesday for some. A few showers are possible through Saturday.
(Further beef up your forecast with our detailed, hour-by-hour breakdown for the next 8 days – only available on our Premium Pro experience.)
How much rain or mountain snow? Although the weather pattern is turning wetter in California, forecast model guidance is not showing any heavy amounts of rain and mountain snow.
Most lower elevation areas will see an inch or less of rainfall, except perhaps near the coast in Northern California. Areas in higher elevations like the foothills of both Northern and Southern California could also see locally more than an inch of rain.
Minor flooding can't be ruled out and roads could be slick in spots because of oil that has built up on roadways over the past couple of months without rain.
This is a warm system, so snowfall will be confined to the highest elevations of the Sierra and Southern California mountains. We don't expect heavy snow totals at this time.
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Is this needed? California and the Desert Southwest still face long-term water supply challenges, due to depleted ground water in the Central Valley and reservoirs in the Colorado River Basin.
But the latest Drought Monitor analysis released last Thursday has California completely drought-free for the first time since Feb. 2020. That's due to a combination of one of the state's wettest fall-spring wet seasons in 2022-23, followed by the bizarre track of Tropical Storm Hilary and its soaking rain into California and the West in August.
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All that rain and melted mountain snow allowed the state's reservoirs to start out this season much higher than usual for early November.
So while this soaking ahead isn't necessarily critical right now, it could squelch existing wildfires and reduce the threat of more for some time. And the Sierra snowpack, crucial for recharging reservoirs when it melts in spring and summer, will begin to build as it usually does through the wet season, which typically runs from late fall through early spring.
Why is this wet pattern happening? The jet stream is taking a sharp, southward plunge off the West Coast. This shifts the storm track southward.
Instead of Pacific storms steered into the Pacific Northwest and western Canada, as has been the case recently, this will steer Pacific storms toward California and the Southwest, as well.
This setup could also tap a weak atmospheric river, a plume of deep moisture that is typically responsible for heavier rain events in California.
Is this a sign of El Niño? While a strong El Niño is currently in place, and can be one of many influences on large-scale weather patterns, no single storm can be attributed to El Niño. After all, California's epic wet season last year, and many others, happened without an El Niño.
We have a much deeper dive on the potential impacts for California's wet season here.
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Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. His lifelong love of meteorology began with a close encounter with a tornado as a child in Wisconsin. He studied physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, then completed his Master's degree working with dual-polarization radar and lightning data at Colorado State University. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on X (formerly Twitter), Threads and Facebook.
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
