Pacific Storm Andreas has been declared here the Southern California Weather Force.  The initial category intensity from the one through six scale will be starting at a two with room for upgrades as more information is crunched.  The impacts will mainly be Monday through Wednesday, with moderate confidence on timing, location, and strength.

How We Categorize and Name The Systems:  Click Here To Read How

The storm system has been named the first Pacific Storm of the 2015-2016 Super El Nino Season, making for one of the earliest Pacific Storm declarations in the project history, pushing Avery to 2nd place.  If you’re asking why the last storm was not named, your answer is this.  It was a hybrid system and the main upper and surface low came from an Ex-Hurricane.  While Pacific Storm Andreas will have tropical connection, the system was a wandering low dropped from a trough to the west, with a colder core at the center … it fits the criteria for Pacific Storm Naming declaration.  This happens with either a solid front, or an upper level low that consists of a cold core.

Pacific Storm Andreas will be very complex.  Members can see the different modeling of precipitation in the member center to get an idea of such, however which to choose is still in the air.  I’ve managed to calibrate the storm pattern this season in the short range (which is good), but medium and long range is still up in the air and of lower confidence than the shorter range.

We have split dynamics.  The system has flooding rains possible for areas in the Inland Empire/San Diego forecast zones, eastward to the San Bernardino, Riverside, and San Diego Mountain areas … further east into the low desert zones all the way through the Colorado River Valley.  This section of the storm is the warm conveyor belt of flooding being possible.

Areas in the Orange, Los Angeles areas will be between this belt of moisture and the deformation band across Ventura/Santa Barbara County.  The lifting zones in these areas may very well be enough divergence and elevated instability to warrant a chance of elevated thunderstorms.

Elsinore Convergence Zone:  If debris clouds are not present on Monday, The Elsinore Convergence Zone has a shot of going off in the Inland Empire … but also stretching into convergence zones in the SBD/RIV/SD Mountain, Valley, and Coastal areas … all the way to the OC.  Debris clouds will be monitored and could be a factor to limit instability.

Furthermore, the northeast flow from the SBD Mountains will put the Metro High Desert zones at risk of storms on Monday.

No doubt that the forecast area will have split dynamics and these details will become more clearer in the next 24 hours but from Monday through Wednesday is the time-frame of the system …

There is no snow or high surf with this system …

After that we dry out again toward the end of the week … nothing in the long range at the moment …