Clear and cold this early Monday on California’s north coast — the last week to a seemingly way-fast month.
As we struggle through a ‘heat wave‘ up here, far to the east, cold-ass shit is about to hit a hard-blowing fan.

From The Weather Channel: ‘Winter Storm Juno will transform from a clipper-type system, which brought a few inches of snow to the Midwest Sunday, into a major coastal storm late Monday into Tuesday as it intensifies rapidly just off the Atlantic coast.’
Supposedly humongous with hurricane-force winds, and one for the books: ‘The National Weather Service is calling it a “crippling and potentially historic blizzard.”‘

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio yesterday: ‘“This could be the biggest snowstorm in the history of this city.”‘

(Illustration: Salvador Dali’s ‘Galatea of the Spheres,’ found here).

Meanwhile, out here on the Left Coast, we’re still dry, and warm — nowadays not many snowstorms ’round these parts. And the good weather last few weeks on the north slope of that coast is just a statewide heat spell.
Last Friday, Dr. Jeff Masters’ at WunderBlog:

An intense ridge of high pressure will build in over California this weekend, bringing near-record high temperatures in the low to mid-70s to San Francisco.
The all-time hottest January temperature in San Francisco of 73°F, set just last year, could fall on Sunday.
The ridge of high pressure will stay entrenched over California during the remainder of January, bringing continued dry conditions.
A weak upper-level low pressure system will bring a few rain showers to the state beginning this Tuesday, but rainfall amounts will be generally less than 1/2″ — an insignificant drop in a very large, dry bucket.
With long-range models showing no shift in the jet stream pattern through the first week of February, California may be on its way to a fourth consecutive bone-dry rainy season–pushing the state into an increasingly dire drought situation.

Plus a quick-take update on that nasty drought:

The rainy season started out promisingly, with several December storms bringing precipitation amounts close to average for the month over much of the state.
Troublingly, though, record-warm ocean temperatures off of the coast meant that the December storms were unusually warm.
This resulted in snow falling only at very high elevations, keeping the critical Sierra snow pack much lower than usual.
…
As a result, the snowpack in the Sierras — a critical reservoir of water that is used throughout the rest of the year — is abysmally low, running about 30 percent of normal for this time of year.
California’s eight largest reservoirs are 33 percent – 86 percent below their historical average, and the portion of the state covered by the highest level of drought expanded in mid-January — a very ominous occurrence for the height of the rainy season.

The word ‘ominous,’ and the short-phrase, ‘potentially historic,’ should never, ever be used together in a sentence — a literary influence which would/should be considered way-scary and not good.