Weekend Weather Wows: San Francisco the new Windy City?
Welcome to our new weekly feature, "Weekend Weather Wows," where we'll go back and find the most interesting tidbits of weather you might have missed over the past week, so you'll be ready to impress at the water cooler (or virtual water cooler) come Monday.
Western snowfall breaking records
The latest winter storm blasted California with more snow. Records are falling across the West.
SAN FRANCISCO – Chicago might call itself the "Windy City," but there may be a new sheriff in town…
Welcome to our new weekly feature, "Weekend Weather Wows," where we'll go back and find the most interesting tidbits of weather you might have missed over the past week, so you'll be ready to impress at the water cooler (or virtual water cooler) come Monday.
Hair gel futures waaaay up in the Bay Area
Atmospheric rivers have been as ubiquitous in California this winter as surfboards and avocado toast, but while heavy rains and feet of mountain snows have taken most of the headlines, San Francisco could just use a day when the wind stops blowing for a minute.
The peak gust during Tuesday's storm hit 49 mph at its airport, which sounds windy – it qualifies for a Wind Advisory alert – until you realize that the gust barely ranks March 28 in the top 15 windiest days – just since Jan. 1! It had four different dates with a gust of at least 65 mph since the start of 2023!
San Diego attempts to avoid dubious distinction as baseball season gets underway
The 2023 MLB season set sail on Thursday but not without some brief weather drama in San Diego.
With yet more rain in the forecast Thursday – even Severe Thunderstorm Warnings and a brief Tornado Warning in the region Thursday morning - officials pushed back the start of the San Diego Padres' season opener by 5.5 hours to avoid potential rain delays. That was good because they don't exactly have a lot of experience with dodging raindrops.
The Padres have only had three games rained out and just nine rain delays since Petco Park opened in 2004, according to team officials (though they've also had two games delayed due to bees!). But one of those games with a rain delay has a dubious – and possibly historic – distinction.
SAN DIEGO, CA - SEPTEMBER 24: Lightning strikes over the ballpark before the San Diego Padres face against the Atlanta Braves on September 24, 2021 at Petco Park in San Diego, California. This is a continuation of the July 21, 2021 game which was suspended due to Rain.
(Matt Thomas / San Diego Padres / Getty Images)
The first game on Sept. 24, 2021, went into a rain delay when thunderstorms in San Diego halted the resumption of a suspended game against the Atlanta Braves. That game had started in Atlanta in July as the second game of a doubleheader but was ultimately suspended in the fifth inning due to rain. The game resumed in San Diego months later when the Braves arrived for a series there, only to face a second weather delay – quite possibly one of the few games in history to have suffered a rain delay in two separate cities?
WHICH MLB TEAM USES THEIR RETRACTABLE ROOF THE MOST? IT's BACKWARD LOGIC
San Diego had 35 days with measurable rain this year through Thursday. It averages 39 for an entire year.
But it's not just the rain in "sunny" San Diego. It's been relatively chilly too.
Snow you can almost measure with an odometer?
While all that rain and wind blew around the California coastal regions, it was feet and feet and feet and feet of snow in the mountains. Actually, forget measuring snow by feet. They could use yards or furlongs or…?
Utah's Alta Ski Resort reached 764 inches of snow this season (63 and two-thirds feet) – its snowiest on record. That's just over 20 yards, or about 0.1 furlongs – or 0.02 kilometers!
(FOX Weather)
Mammoth Mountain had mammoth totals too this season with 695 inches, breaking its old record of 667 inches set in the 2010-11 winter. That works out to about 19% the height of the State of Liberty.
(FOX Weather)
Of course, Mount Baker still says: "child's play." The mountain nestled in Washington's northern Cascades still comfortably holds the world record for annual snowfall at 1,140 inches (one-third of a kilometer!) set in the epic winter of 1998-99. There's probably still some snow around.
Other tidbits of the week:
- What spring? Bismarck, North Dakota, reached a morning low of -13 degrees on Wednesday, breaking the old record of -7.
- National Weather Service forecasters were beyond busy last Friday and into the weekend with the tornado outbreak in the South. A FOX Weather analysis found that the NWS issued 385 Severe Thunderstorm Warnings, 66 Tornado Warnings and four Tornado Emergency warnings between March 24 and 28.
- Los Angeles and San Francisco still lead Seattle with rainfall since the start of the rainy season in October, and it's not even close. San Francisco has had 30.56 inches of rain (0.00077 kilometers!) since Oct. 1, while Los Angeles has had 27.01 inches and the usual rain-champ Seattle is at just 22.50 inches.