Welcome to the middle of January LRC Weather Bloggers,

Where are we within the cycling weather pattern?  We are in the second cycle of this years unique weather pattern.  The third cycle will begin later this month or early in February as we believe this is around a 62 day cycle give or take a few days.   Take a look at the first cycle:

Here is a map from the first cycle of this year's LRC on November 16th.  This is the 500 mb flow. A series of waves carved out an trough and eventually a slow moving closed low, that actually got cut-off from the main jet stream.  It formed over Kansas and then drifted across Missouri over two days before ejecting out into New England. 

And, now compare it to cycle 2 of LRC 2009-2010.  This map will be valid 61 days after the same part of the pattern in cycle #1.  Can you see the similarities?  The big differences are seasonal with an El Nino southern branch influence.  It is no suprise that this is going to be farther south this time and it will be a wet system for the deep south.

After this system goes by this weekend, the west coast will begin bracing for a series of storm systems.  This could be a dramatic weather producer out west for at least a week.  Southern California should get blasted as well as much of the rest of the state of California, and other western states.  This is all part of the cycling pattern and this will be the transition period as we go into the third cycle of the LRC in February. 

Here is the GFS rainfall forecast for early next week.  The California coastal areas should be preparing now. This fits so well with what happened in November, but it tracked farther north. This should be an energetic series of lower latitude Pacific storm systems bringing major mountain snowfalls and flooding in the coastal areas.

I am still adding more thoughts.....

Gary