After weeks and weeks of seemingly endless low clouds & fog in the San Joaquin Valley, along with very chilly temperatures, finally a little afternoon sun has returned in the past few days, and so have 50 degree temperatures. These somewhat milder temperatures will be sticking around, but that sunshine won’t: we’ll be swapping the early December fog for rain soon. And it could be a lot of rain by Christmas Eve.
Let’s look back on how cold it’s been these past few weeks first. Wednesday (Dec. 17th) afternoon at 1 pm, Fresno did something that it hadn’t done in over 2 weeks: reported a temperature that was NOT in the 40’s. From 8 a.m. December 2nd until last Wednesday afternoon (over 15 days), the temperature had been in the 40’s… and ONLY the 40’s. That’s 365 consecutive hours of very consistent temperatures, easily the longest run of this kind in Fresno’s history (records go back to 1887). That also ended a streak of 379 consecutive hours with temperatures below 50 degrees, which was the 3rd longest streak of that kind since records began at Fresno-Yosemite Int’l airport in 1949. High temperatures in Fresno averaged only 47.1 degrees through last Wednesday, which was on track for our 3rd lowest average monthly high temperature ever in Fresno… but we won’t finish the month that way. Pacific storms have been moving into northern California the past couple of days, and while they haven’t brought us any rain yet, they have broken the inversion over the Valley, and mixed out the cold air and fog. It’s sounds odd, but this incoming stormy weather will bring warmer temperatures to the Valley!
A LOT of rain is coming to California from now through Christmas… NORTHERN California. Some isolated spots in the far northern Sierra Nevada (like Plumas or eastern Butte counties) could pick up 15″ to 17″ of rain by Christmas, while some spots in the Sacramento Valley (like Chico) could pick up 6″ to 8″ of rain by Christmas!…