California wet season shows signs of life into 2021 as parade of storms develops

After what has been a very disappointing beginning to the wet season in California, which has led to worsening drought conditions and wildfire concerns deep into December, there are some signs of hope as we look ahead to the next couple of weeks.

Monday's storm was a good start, with widespread rainfall of over an inch through much of the L.A. Basin. These impressive rainfall totals wiped out more than half of the rainfall deficit in parts of the area that had been growing from a nearly dry December so far. It was the biggest rainfall in many, many months.

The much-needed rain will likely clamp down on the threat from wildfires going forward, following the most recent offshore wind event last week that led to some sizable fires.

In the wake of that storm, Southern California will be drying out a bit throughout much of the rest of the week as the storm track shifts back more toward the Pacific Northwest.

From Tuesday through the end of next week, we're looking at the potential for six to seven storms to bring significant rain and mountain snow to the West Coast.

While southern parts of the state dry out again in the short-term, Northern California will share in some of the much-needed rain.

Take a look at how the GFS ensemble mean evolves through the end of next week. As I always say, don't focus on the exact amount of rain since this goes so far out into the future, but focus on the general idea.

Clearly, you can see the focus of the storm track shifting north, with the potential for 4-8 inches of rain from western Washington through northernmost California. There's also the potential for 2-3 inches of rain during the period in the San Francisco Bay Area and the likelihood for feet of snow in the Sierra.

Farther south, the picture is not as hopeful for additional rain. Since I pulled this map from the afternoon run on the GFS ensembles on Monday, about half of the rain you're seeing in coastal Southern California is rain from Monday's storm.

Even beyond where I stopped this map, the second week of January looks to continue to be stormy in the Northwest.

So, the areas that have done well so far during the wet season, namely western parts of Washington and Oregon, will continue to do well over the next few weeks.

Northern California, which had a slow start, will have things ramp up nicely and start to eat into some of these rainfall deficits.

Across Southern California, the storm Monday ended up being really helpful in what's been such a dry season so far. A handful of the many storms coming into the West will likely bring some rain to Souther Californai. As we saw on Monday, all it takes is one storm to produce quite a bit of rain.

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