West Coast storm hits Northern California with heavy late-March snow

The mountains of California are getting feet of snow from the end of March into the first days of April.

Transcript

00:00We are talking significant snow with this storm, plus the rain, right?

00:03A storm that we would maybe see in January, February, maybe early March, not late March,

00:07almost April.

00:08But we are seeing significant snowfall totals over the last 24 hours into California, parts

00:13of Nevada, and mostly in northern California here.

00:16We'll take a look at radar over the last couple of hours, and it's a little bit more scattered,

00:20right?

00:21But if you look closely at some of the areas of snow, the blue, you see some darker blue

00:25shades.

00:26That's heavier snowfall, allowing for some of those higher snow totals.

00:32Is driving this is cooler air in place, and one way to demonstrate that and see that there

00:37is that cooler air in place is the temperatures dropping over the last 24 hours.

00:41Redding is the exception to the rule, where temperatures have increased a little bit.

00:45But overall, this is just a much cooler storm than the last few that we've had.

00:49You can also see that indicated by all the pink that's on the overall kind of snapshot

00:53of this storm.

00:54A lot of the wintry mix, and then of course the snow into the higher elevations.

00:58This does go through tomorrow night, so let's take a look at future radar on kind of how

01:02that plays out.

01:03It is going to be a little bit more scattered until we get to the overnight hours.

01:07And what happens, the area of low pressure, kind of the core of this storm, moves onshore

01:10into Oregon, and we start to see some of that heavier snowfall as well.

01:14And then we see the precipitation become more scattered as this system moves further inland.

01:19We'll be stuck with some spotty showers and snow showers as we go into Wednesday.

01:25But then this really moves further inland and clears out of here, actually paves the

01:29way for a system into the central US.

01:32Let's take a look at those snowfall totals, though, that we are forecasting.

01:36This is your overall snow totals by the time we get into Wednesday, and you'll notice these

01:40are in feet, not in inches.

01:43This is not something we're usually talking about this time of year with such high snow

01:46totals.

01:47This is good for building that snowpack, will help us later as we get into the summer.

01:51And drought is a concern, right?

01:53It helps with reservoir levels, things like that, and of course, the ski resorts.