Dry fuels and the potential for dry Santa Ana winds next week have forecasters on alert.

A Fire Weather Watch has been issued for Tuesday-Friday in LA & Ventura counties. This could be elevated to a Red Flag Warning as forecast confidence increases. (4/4)

Drought conditions are starting to develop in SoCal, too.

It is still relatively early in the water year, but LA and San Diego are close to 3" short of average rainfall to this point. (3/4)

Northern California has seen a steady pace of rain and snow lately. Grasses are nice and green. Larger fuels have plenty of moisture.

Southern California has had almost no rain since early October. Fuels there are as dry as they'd be in the height of fire season. (2/4)

Traveling in the Sierra? I don't envy you.

There won't be *a lot* of snow, but the combo of snow & wind + Friday traffic + holiday traffic is going to make the trip take much longer than usual.

You'll need chains above 5000' if your vehicle does not have AWD.

Hi George, yep I've covered this in the past and will continue to do so going forward! Here's a couple links from 2022.

www.kcra.com/article/clim...

www.kcra.com/article/clim...

Once everything dried out, fire season roared to life.

This year finished just below the 5-year avg & just above the 20-year avg for acres burned.

The #ParkFire is easily the biggest at 400,000+ acres. Most of that was grass & brush that burned the first 2 days.

The 2023-2024 water year wound up just slightly below average for Sacramento.

But thanks to a huge year last year, reservoirs were already in great shape.

Shasta and Oroville filled up no problem by June.

Before the heat set in, we had a busy spring.

The Sierra snowpack peaked on April 9th with higher than average numbers.

That's thanks in large part to a huge dump of snow from an early March blizzard. The snowpack went from 78% to 103% in just a few days.

Amazingly, 2024 was NOT Sacramento's hottest year on record. That is still 2014. Every single month was warmer than average that year.

While we saw record heat this summer, 2014 had record WINTER warmth.

Records for downtown Sacramento date back to 1877.

And for the Sierra...

You have to leave the Valley by 4 a.m. to make it over the summits without snow. Chain controls could be needed as early as 8 a.m. on 50, 80 & 88.

6-8" for Donner Summit. ~12" for resorts on the West Slope.

Then dry for the powder hounds on #Christmas!

The Foothills will be wettest in the morning with light rain and drizzle hanging around in the afternoon.

Up to an inch of rain expected in Placerville and Auburn.

SIERRA SNOW (4/4)

Snow will be on and off Thursday night and Friday.

It will last all day Saturday. And it'll be heavy starting around midday. Not a good travel day!

But Sunday will be a GREAT day for skiers and boarders.

SATURDAY WIND (3/4)

Lots of places will see gusts between 35 and 45 mph for the first half of Saturday.

That could "relocate" small items in the yard. Things like holiday decor. Double check that Friday.

Wind will gradually weaken in the afternoon.

SATURDAY RAIN (2/4)

It certainly won't rain all day Saturday, but it could come down hard at times. Our in-house model shows a long, narrow band of gusty showers around mid morning.

The afternoon looks mainly dry for the Valley with a stray shower or thunderstorm.