Heavy Rain — Tuolumne, California

2012-11-30 · near Harden Flats, Tuolumne, California

Event narrative

Twenty four hour rainfall total at Tuolumne Meadows was 3.70 inches.

Wider weather episode

The stable weather pattern continued through November 27th. The first in a series of east-Pacific storms approached the northern part of the central California interior that evening. These storms tapped into a long fetch of subtropical moisture, with resulting high snow levels through the first day of December.

While the first storm brought between a tenth and a quarter inch of rain to much of the central and southern San Joaquin Valley'north of Bakersfield'it was the second storm that brought significant rainfall to the central California interior. Fresno had a record rainfall on November 30th of 0.62 inch; the old record was 0.50 inch, set in 1982. In the Southern Sierra Nevada, new snowfall amounts ranged from 8 to 18 inches above the 9,000 foot level. The Sierra foothills saw heavy rain, with amounts around 4 inches in some spots. As a result of the heavy rainfall, some rock and mud slides occurred as the heavy rains weakened the soil. There were also several reports of flooded roads in Merced, Mariposa, Madera, and Fresno Counties.

Bakersfield and the far south end of the San Joaquin Valley remain rain shadowed. Meadows Field recorded only 0.02 inch of rain from each of the first two storm, as the storm track stayed mainly north of Kern County.

The combination of clouds and the warm subtropical airmass also kept low temperatures unseasonably warm. Both Bakersfield and Fresno set record high minimum temperatures on the last day of the month. Both cities had above-normal average temperatures, an Fresno had its sixth warmest November on record. This was also the fourth consecutive month that Fresno ranked in the top 10 warmest months. August and September 2012 were the warmest months, respectively, on record, and October 2012 was the eighth warmest October on record. Temperature records for Fresno began on August 16th, 1887.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (37.7600, -119.8200)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 420239. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.