(Illustration: ‘Dark-Hole Sun’ off my back patio, eastward from Mckinleyville)

Bright sunrise and cold this early Sunday on California’s north coast, a return to yesteryear of clear, crisp mornings with frosty rooftops, a nice break as the continuous rain was getting monotonous, though, we can use every droplet, and snowflake.
According to my weather folks — WunderBlog/the NWS — we’re mostly-supposed to have this sort of environmental set up the next week to 10 days, more sunshine than rain. However, be prepared for anything as this winter season has been a bit freaky.

Although we’ve some nice, clear weather, the LA area is reportedly to be drenched today and tomorrow, with more than an inch of rain, thunderstorms, the whole lot. A good event, as the southern part of the state has been lacking in rainfall so far this nervous, agitated season.
Snowpack in the Sierra Nevada is 115 percent of normal, the highest in 2011, but we really need 150 percent by April — snowpack a critical contributor of about one-third of the state’s water supply.
A good, readable analysis of this season’s so-far impact on California’s drought was posted Friday at WunderBlog — along with water data, this key point on freaky:

Every El Niño has its peculiarities, and the blockbuster event of 2015-16 is no different…One notable difference between the current event and past ones is the dramatically warmer Niño4 region — the westernmost area, far out in the equatorial Central Pacific.
This toasty Niño4 helps explain the turbocharged Central Pacific hurricane season of 2015, which sloshed into January 2016 with the unseasonable development of Hurricane Pali — the first hurricane known to prowl within one of the Niño regions shown in the map.
It’s not yet clear how the distinctive SST pattern of the Niño regions this winter is intersecting with other factors, including the widespread oceanic warmth elsewhere.
One thing is clear: this isn’t an El Niño Modoki.
That subcategory of El Niño, whose downstream effects can differ from those of a “classic” event, is defined by SSTs that are above average in the central Pacific (Niño4) but below average in the far eastern Pacific (Niño1+2).
Right now, the Niño1+2 region is still running well above average.

A dark hole in a bright sun…still feels good.