For once, the doppler jockies didn’t overestimate it…StormTracker 2010 Heads on a Stick is truly turning out to be a blockbuster storm:

Red is strongest

As usual, Weather Underground has the best animated doo-hickeys that help you track the storm’s progress.

There’s minor flooding here in Newhall. I can only imagine the Newhall creek, South Fork and Santa Clara must be raging now.

The blog I Heart quoted from today in his post about the forthcoming storms is a goldmine of science and predictions for the interesting weather ahead:

After a very prolonged period of benign and mostly dry weather across the entire state brought about by an anomalously and almost bizarrely persistent high-latitude block for much of the winter season thus far, a major shift in the hemispheric flow pattern will being a prolonged period of heavy rainfall and strong winds to the entire state of California. Though there have been a few large storms California over the last few years, the first decade of the new millennium  was generally not known for its active weather patterns in our state. The new decade appears to be trying to make up for some lost time in that regard. For the first time in at least several years, a powerful southern stream branch of the jet stream over the Pacific is expected to roar across CA for at least the next two weeks, potentially bringing a tremendous amount of precipitation and frequent strong wind events.

Wow!

I Heart wondered about what the Santa Clara river might look like as these rains dump several inches on the SCV. I recorded this video about two years ago following six days of rain. Sure this footage isn’t that special, but it’s amazing when you consider how dry the river bed is for much of the year.

The river out by the 126 was really amazing- over 100 feet wide, moving swiftly toward the ocean and carrying tons of natural and man-made debris.

Anyway, time to clean the gutters.

I was just browsing the weather stats at SantaClaritaWeather.com and saw this:

                  MONTHLY CLIMATOLOGICAL SUMMARY FOR 10/2009
                                        HEAT  COOL
     MEAN                               DEG   DEG       WIND SPEED       DOM MEAN  MEAN
DAY  TEMP  HIGH   TIME     LOW   TIME   DAYS  DAYS RAIN AVG  HI  TIME    DIR BAROM HUM
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1    72.4  82.4   3:19pm  64.0  12:22am    0    5  0.00   7  40   9:13am ENE 29.97    9
2    69.5  85.7   2:24pm  56.3   5:42am    2    6  0.00   3  24   4:13pm  NE 29.86   14
3    62.9  74.9   2:28pm  52.8   6:57am    4    2  0.00   4  28   2:39pm  NE 29.71   41
4    56.5  65.6   2:42pm  48.9  11:59pm    8    0  0.00   5  26   1:19pm WSW 29.71   62
5    54.5  69.9   3:04pm  44.1   3:55am    9    0  0.00   3  26   4:58pm  NE 29.90   59
6    57.6  76.5   3:27pm  44.2   6:50am    8    2  0.00   3  27  11:16am ENE 29.87   60
7    57.0  70.8   2:21pm  45.2   6:18am    8    1  0.00   3  20   3:12pm WSW 29.90   71
8    58.3  74.0   3:10pm  46.1   6:03am    7    1  0.00   2  18   3:36pm WSW 30.00   74
9    60.2  74.6   4:30pm  48.6   6:13am    6    2  0.00   2  16  12:51pm WSW 30.00   77
10   59.8  76.0   3:10pm  48.2   6:13am    7    2  0.00   2  19   5:09pm WSW 29.83   75
11   56.6  65.3   3:54pm  49.9  11:45pm    8    0  0.00   2  19   4:21pm WSW 29.83   84
12   55.0  59.8   2:06pm  50.2  12:00am    8    0  0.54   3  24   5:29pm  NE 29.82   88
13   57.4  60.1  11:50am  55.0  12:00am    6    0  0.25   9  31   5:04pm SSW 29.87   96
14   62.2  66.3   3:21pm  58.9  12:25am    2    0  0.29   3  27   2:09pm SSW 30.01   99
15   70.9  87.0   3:31pm  54.4   6:37am    3    8  0.00   2  19   2:40pm   N 29.99   62
16   80.3  92.3   4:02pm  68.3   6:37am    0   12  0.00   4  28  11:02am ENE 29.90   32
17   77.6  94.7   3:28pm  65.0   1:55am    0   11  0.00   2  16   3:38pm ESE 29.87   29
18   70.5  84.0   2:17pm  59.2   6:23am    1    6  0.00   2  20   1:16pm ENE 29.89   54
19   61.5  67.6   2:16pm  56.5   9:48pm    3    0  0.00   4  20   2:19pm WSW 29.91   87
20   63.0  76.3   3:28pm  52.9   3:46am    3    2  0.00   3  22   6:23am  NW 29.88   49
21   67.7  82.6   3:06pm  54.7   7:13am    2    5  0.00   2  19  10:13am  NE 29.88   31
22   69.1  84.0   2:37pm  56.6   7:35am    1    5  0.00   2  14   2:17pm  NE 29.86   31
23   71.6  89.9   2:36pm  55.6   6:24am    1    7  0.00   2  17   4:43pm  NE 29.91   30
24   71.6  85.7   3:13pm  56.6   6:24am    1    6  0.00   3  25   5:23pm  NE 29.85   31
25   74.1  84.3   2:49pm  61.2   4:04am    0    8  0.00   4  32   1:13pm  NE 29.87   22
26   73.7  87.2   3:00pm  63.4  11:04pm    0    8  0.00   3  16  10:15am  NE 29.95   12
27   58.6  63.9  12:43pm  50.8   5:12am    6    0  0.00   7  43   3:56pm   N 29.75   30
28   52.4  60.9   1:54pm  43.2   7:24am   11    0  0.00   4  22   7:09pm   N 29.84   26
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOT  64.4  94.7 10/17/09  43.2 10/28/09  115  100  1.08   3  42 10/27/09  NE 29.88   51

HEAT BASE: 65.0
COOL BASE: 65.0

 A 51.5 degree difference between the high temp and low temp this month. On the 17th it was hot enough for beach clothes and just 11 days later, I'm not ashamed to admit I wore gloves on my ride into work.