As anticipated, Hilary brought quite the deluge to SoCal and Southern Nevada. Below are non-quality-controlled gauge reports to MesoWest for the 3-day period ending this morning (there are a few erroneous observations plotted if you look). Widespread reports of more than 2 inches in the LA Basin, 5 inches in portions of the San Gabriel Mountains, more than 5 inches in the southeastern end of the Sierra Nevada, 3 inches in the Amargosa Valley, and 5 inches in the Spring Mountains.
Mt. San Jacinto with 11.75". What an unbelievable forecast by the HRRR model discussed in an earlier post.
Palm Springs Regional Airport with 3.23". The mean annual is about 5.5 and comparison with Mt. San Jacinto to the immediate west illustrates remarkable orographic enhnancement.
Hunter Mountain with 5.89". This site is in the mountain forming the northern end of the Panamint Valley just west of Death Valley. Despite elevation (6880 ft), it is remarkably dry.
Furnace Creek (Death Valley) with 1.70". Well over half their mean annual precipitation of 2.2" and 17 times their average for August (0.10").
Spring Mountains Deluge. I'm not sure how much faith to put in the highest reports from the Spring Mountains of Nevada, but lower sites in Kyle and Lee Canyons reported just over 5" and upper canyon sites over 7". The Lee Canyon SNOTEL site reported 8.8" and the Bristlecone Trail site a bit higher 10.80".
Quite an event.
Another great post.
ReplyDeleteAny thoughts on 12 inches at Mt. San Jacinto. At nearly 11,000 feet, in the middle of the storm track, its the highest point after land fall so the storm stalls and dumps? Impressive how the HRRR forecast 36 hours ahead was unfathomable but verified.
WRCC reports Avg August precip there is 1.6 inches, annual is 26 inches. 8x monthly average and 45% of annual from one 48 hour event. Haven't looked at other sites, but this 10x August, 50% annual seems typical for this storm. Fascinating.