00:00It is time for the forecast feed as we close out the month of October with a significant
00:05storm that will carry us into the first few days of November in the southwest.
00:10It's a true cross-country storm, southwest, south-central, and then the east coast, and
00:14it will take the better part of a week to roll from Pacific to Atlantic.
00:19But you know, we've had a wet October.
00:21I'm going to show you a couple of the graphics.
00:22It's been impressive, at least in my eyes, when we consider how well the wet season has
00:29started here.
00:30This is aligning pretty well with, you know, a lot of the time when we have an El Nino,
00:35we begin to think about extra precipitation in the southwest in the wet season, and October
00:40has not disappointed.
00:42In fact, we've just kind of seen a blur from the end of monsoon season into what is beginning
00:48to look and feel more like the wet season in the southwest.
00:52And we're not going to see a whole lot more before October 31st comes to a close of the
00:58heaviest rain in the interior.
00:59It will happen Saturday evening, Saturday night, just before the bell rings, and we'll
01:04turn the page to November.
01:05It looks like the wettest time in Flagstaff and Durango, Colorado, and Vegas will probably
01:09be on November 1st on Sunday.
01:12But October is ending up three, four times above typical rainfall amounts.
01:16San Diego, you may end up with two inches of rain for the whole month.
01:20We'll probably see you close to a half inch around midnight on Saturday night.
01:25Alright, so we're doing pretty well.
01:27I thought this was pretty cool, and our graphics artist and specialist, Lindsey, created this
01:33for us this morning.
01:34And I really like the way it looks.
01:36This is a look at Lake Powell.
01:39And Lake Powell has seen a pretty impressive 14 to 15 foot rise in the past six weeks.
01:45That's pretty decent stuff.
01:47For perspective, that takes us back to the end of February.
01:51So it kind of recovers our spring and summer losses.
01:56That's good news.
01:57But just as kind of a reality check, look at where we were one year ago.
02:03So again, we had a pretty lackluster year.
02:06It's still a net loss.
02:08The trend is good, and you know, the trend is going to continue to come up.
02:11I don't know how high we're going to get before things kind of plateau, and maybe we'll
02:15get a break between storms.
02:16But we're doing better year over year, though.
02:18There's way more demand than the atmosphere can provide.
02:21Even separate from any conversation about changes in climate, the demand we're putting
02:26on the southwestern water is greater than even an average year, whether it was in 1800
02:32or in 2026.
02:34We're putting more demands on these waterways than they can provide.
02:37And just another reality check, in my opinion, Lake Mead, we've seen a rise.
02:43The rise on Lake Mead is one foot, and it only recovers about the past month of loss on
02:49Lake Mead.
02:49Much larger, larger volume of lake to see a bounce back.
02:53Some of the water is not yet released from Lake Powell to go farther downstream.
02:57So again, we still have issues.
02:59And the demand is way higher than the atmosphere can deliver, at least until we figure out a
03:04way to maybe cheaply desalinate things and take ocean water and use it as a freshwater
03:09source.
03:10Overall, there is a lot of moisture coming in.
03:13And you can trace this from Hawaii all the way, all the way into the southwestern US.
03:19The main trajectory is aimed a little south of the bulk of California.
03:23But you'll notice some extra lift in the atmosphere here, north of the current plume of moisture.
03:27That becomes, and you can see a little bit of jet stream energy digging in to help energize
03:33this.
03:33Another player on the field coming in from south of the Gulf of Alaska, that's going
03:37to scare up some more moisture that will bring a more robust round into areas around Southern
03:41California.
03:42So let's look at the overall flow.
03:44You can see a reflection of that northern branch feature.
03:47This other guy here, that other disturbance in the jet stream, that's going to dig south.
03:52And this trough, the bright colors are spinning in the atmosphere.
03:56If you're east of that, you have extra lift.
03:58So extra lift here.
03:59This is Sunday into Arizona, extra lift into areas around Utah and much of Nevada.
04:04And we're going to see a pretty good shot of moisture.
04:06This trough digs even deeper.
04:09Look at how it digs even deeper with a little help from this other disturbance coming down
04:13from Manitoba and Alberta.
04:17And look at that.
04:17That further energizes this system and gives it a slightly negative tilt.
04:22The trough will have a down and rightward tilt, scaring up severe weather Tuesday and
04:27Wednesday in the south.
04:28So this is a coast-to-coast storm.
04:31The rainfall in the southwest, it'll be limited, probably under an inch in downtown L.A., maybe
04:36a little more than an inch in some of the foothills to the east.
04:38Another depiction here in the NAMM, pretty healthy into Sunday and then into the European.
04:42This is the most robust scenario for Orange County and eastern L.A. County.
04:46A decent rain there into Arizona and New Mexico, and you can see the mountain snow there as
04:51well.
04:53And before we look farther down the line into the severe weather, I just wanted to give
04:56you a little sneak peek.
04:57Again, there will be snow in the Sierra, it's not going to be a lot.
05:00One plus inch in Donner Pass, one to three for Echo Summit.
05:04You could see two or three perhaps at Donner, but one inch is more likely than three, a little
05:08more farther south.
05:09And the flooding rain is going to be a concern here with two to four inches of rain into parts
05:13of Arizona.
05:13Now, that storm moves east, here's the Sunday snapshot, that's when we dry out in central
05:19California, lingering showers in L.A., and snow into the Rockies.
05:23But as that trough moves east, three big headlines for next week, severe storms break out into
05:29the southern plains and into the southeast.
05:32Eventually, this will even end the dry spell in the northeast Thursday, and a third story
05:37line unrelated to coastal Florida, still see some flooding.
05:41So, when it comes to the severe risk, we're going to have some instability.
05:47You can see there are areas in Texas that may crack close to 2,000 joules per kilogram.
05:52So, it's kind of like a middle of the road severe weather event here.
05:55Tuesday, it gets shunted east.
05:57You'll notice, as the front pushes east, it really abbreviates the instability, but there's
06:03some instability, just not a ton of it.
06:04So, this time of the year, a lot of the instability is often driven, here's a look farther east.
06:10Man, there's not a whole lot of instability that makes it much north of I-20, but there's
06:15some.
06:15A lot of the severe weather events this time of the year, it's a little more robust in
06:18the European, a lot of the severe weather events this time of the year are driven more
06:23by the winds aloft, more so than by the instability and that updraft potential.
06:29So, here's what we're looking at.
06:31Monday, we have severe weather concerns in the southern plains and into the Ozarks, damaging
06:35wind, isolated tornadoes, and flash flooding.
06:37We take a step east, then into Tuesday, mainly into Arkansas, Louisiana, east Texas, into the
06:43lower Mississippi Valley.
06:44Damaging wind, isolated tornadoes will be the main concerns.
