We were all ready for snow on the mountains, but it didn’t happen. Why not?
A “good dusting” of snow was in the forecast for SLO County on Thursday, but it didn’t materialize — though frost appeared in some places.
“You never know about these things sometimes,” PG&E meteorologist John Lindsey said.
So why didn’t we get our winter wonderland?
It has to do with the storm system that moved through the area, Lindsey said. Since it came down from the north over land, there just wasn’t enough moisture — though the temperatures were definitely cold.
“That upper-level low (pressure system) took more of a path over land than it did ocean and consequently, it didn’t have very much moisture associated with it,” Lindsey said.
However, Lindsey added that he did get some reports of snow on the higher mountain peaks in the area.
And there may have been snow at lower elevations early this morning, before the sun came up.
“If somebody was on top of Bishop Peak at 4 or 5 in the morning, they might’ve experienced a snow flurry,” Lindsey said. But in general, “the snow levels were pretty low, there just wasn’t enough moisture to generate any real measurable snow.”
As of Thursday afternoon, there are still some rain showers to the east of Paso Robles and over Santa Maria, but most places in SLO County got just a few hundredths to a few tenths of an inch of rain with this system, Lindsey said. Hail was also reported around the county, including in San Luis Obispo and Arroyo Grande.
Any precipitation with this system was expected to stop by Thursday night.
Coming up, dry weather is expected through Monday, Lindsey said, but a weather system may deliver a few rain showers on Sunday.
Early next week, a “prominent” low-pressure system could bring a plume of subtropical moisture into California, which could bring moderate to heavy rain across the Central Coast through the middle of next week. And the wet weather could continue past that.
“The first week of March is looking pretty wet,” Lindsey said, cautioning that he is relying on long-range forecast models that are subject to change.
This story was originally published February 21, 2019 at 3:48 PM.
