DesertWeather.com blog

Last night (Friday) we reported a gust of 47mph @ 9:11pm here in Thousand Palms! Sustained winds for most of the evening were around 35. Visibility was down to a quarter mile at times with the blowing dust! There were also reports of at least 2 incidents of large profile vehicles along Interstate 10 being blown over.

Why is the north valley susceptible to these high winds?
The San Gorgonio Pass is one of the windiest places in California, the winds channel through the pass (via the Venturi Effect) and down the northern part of the valley. April, May, & June are the windiest months for the valley as it starts to heat up and “June Gloom” settles in around Los Angeles and the Inland Empire (San Bernardino). Not necessarily required, but with the help of “June Gloom” a temperature difference is created. With the warmer air rising here, and much cooler temps to the north, the air is pulled in between Mt San Jacinto (10,804ft) and Mt. San Gorgonio (11,499ft) like a vacuum.

Interestingly enough, winds like today can reach 40-50mph along Interstate 10 and just 5 miles south in Palm Desert it can be calm!

Here’s a link to a interesting article at LiveScience.com. Its explains a study published in the April 5 issue of the journal Science concerning long term dry conditions here in the southwest due to climate change.
ARTICLE LINK

The Coachella Valley saw its share of wild weather yesterday afternoon with wind, rain, and chilly conditions. It went from clear, sunny, and windy, and a high temperature of 68° at 12:30pm, to dark, rainy, and windy, 3 hours later! The daily low of 49° was recorded at 3:30pm!

Here at Desertweather (Thousand Palms) we recorded 1 one-hundredth of an inch of rain. Palm Springs Airport recorded 6 one-hundredths of a inch.

You can see the drop in temperature as the storm moved in, and then out rather quickly:

We’ve migrated the blog to a new look (as you can see ). We did this so we could be more flexible with it, and it allows us to enable many more features like polling, better photo handling, among others. We think it is also important to differentiate the blog away from the main site.

We hope you enjoy the new look and please remember to use its features like the RSS feeds, commenting, and also please give us your opinion via the polls.

We also wanted to take this opportunity to thank all who visit Desertweather.com. We are growing at a steady rate and expect to add a few additions to Desertweather sometime this year which include a weather cam & local lightning detector / map.

John
Desertweather.com

Another storm system is expected to affect California Monday & Tuesday. But will it give the much needed rain we lack here in the Coachella Valley?

It will bring cooler temperatures to the Valley. As far as rain, there is only a 10-20% chance of rain for us here in the valley. We need the rain! Per the National Drought Mitigation Center, some of Southern California and far western Arizona, has been promoted to “Extreme” drought status. The little system we saw in the last few days didn’t produce much rain here in the valley so no relief was seen.