Heavy Rain — Sierra, California

2024-07-15 · near Sierraville Drwtr Ar, Sierra, California

Event narrative

A mesonet stations ICKC1(SNOTEL) located 3.6 mi N of Independence Lake, CA, RNYC (Rice Canyon) located 5.0 mi SSE of Sierraville, CA, and ICPC1(SNOTEL) located 0.9 mi NE of Independence Lake, CA reported a total rainfall amounts of 1.10 inches, 0.72 inches, and 0.6 inches respectively.

Wider weather episode

On 13 July, forcing provided by an upper low off the central CA coast, and a southerly flow aloft riding around the outer western periphery of an upper ridge centered over Four-Corners region pulled deep monsoonal moisture northward into the Sierra and western Nevada. These conditions initiated scattered showers and thunderstorms across much of the region. As these weather features showed little movement, a near repeat scenario occurred for 14 July. Showers with embedded storms and lightning lingered through the night into the morning hours. The return of a southwest flow that evening across the Sierra kicked the storms into west central NV with the activity winding down later that night. Residual moisture was slower to scour out the afternoon of 15 July south of US-50 that resulted in a few short lived showers and initiation of pulse-type thunderstorms. The typical array of storm effects included locally heavy rainfall, lightning, outflow gusts of 35+ knots, small hail, and lower CIGS/VIS with mountain obscurations.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (39.4678, -120.2932)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1206768. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.