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Are we in California yet? - 04.01.06

A month of remarkable rains has Californians wondering where their state went.

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Fig.1

This past March presented the West Coast with a remarkable, record stretch of late rains. The eclipse pattern that supported this unusual period of persistent rains was influenced by the lunar node on the eastern pair of points and Saturn and Jupiter on the western pair of eclipse points. The chart shows the disturbance diamond over the eastern Pacific resulting from these placements. The 72° jet curves from the respective points are set to the values that were present for most of the month as planets moved in relationship to both sets of points. As luck would have it the two jet curves on the right side of the diamond were aspected to high pressure values(blue) for a good portion of March, while the two left hand set of jet curves from the respective points (red) have been aspected to low pressure. This has created a situation where most fronts coming out of the Gulf of Alaska have drooped down the West Coast while a ridge has sustained itself in western Canada. The resulting weather brought successive cold weather and rains into the West Coast while portions of western Canada remained dry and unseasonably warm.

Fig.2

In figure 2 the situation is depicted for the last few days of the month of March. An eclipse on the 28th shifted the eclipse grid to the west of its previous position. In that placement the new eclipse points were still aspected by the lunar node, Jupiter and Saturn but a different configuration of high and low pressure values was present. The image shows that the two inner 72° jet curves were aspected to low pressure (red) and the two outer 72° jet curves were aspected to high pressure (blue). This formed a bowl shape in the central Gulf of Alaska that continued and even intensified the trough formation on the West Coast. A ridge still tended to form over Western Canada but the trough from the Gulf of Alaska was well established and kept delivering strong cold fronts into the West Coast. Storms with hail and thunder and cloudburst types of precipitation were the result for large swaths of the central Valley from Mt. Shasta to Stockton. This pattern was enhanced by the occurance of the solar eclipse at perigee, a particularly strong placement.

Fig.3

In the third image the new placement of the major portion of the eclipse grid off of the coast is shown. However it can be seen that there is still a small portion of the grid extending from southwest to northeast directly across California. It can also be seen that the two right-hand 72° jet curves of the eclipse diamond are designated blue for high pressure and the two left-hand 72° jet curves are designated red for low pressure. This is the configuration that begins in the first few days of April. The expectation is that the high pressure against the coast will clear the skies and raise temperatures more to seasonal norms. This is because the high should lodge against the Sierras as the winter jet stream placement moves north. This event should still allow storms into the PNW but it should allow the sodden and cold portions of the Central Valley of California to move into spring.

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