Overcast with the threat of more rain this near-noon Friday here in California’s Central Valley — we’re on the rim of a massive winter storm that crashed into the northern portion of the state last night.
Despite the storm’s power lash, we will most likely just get a breeze-like effect instead of the power of the wind-whipped Arctic tempest unleased already up north and in the Sierra Nevada mountains to the east,

A blow-out, dangerous ‘blockbuster’ of a storm: ‘“Travel over Sierra passes has already become treacherous and will only deteriorate as we go into the weekend,” the National Weather Service office in Reno, Nevada, warned Friday. “The time to hunker down is upon us.”‘

In the mountains be swell the view:

We have received 19.1" (48.5 cm) of #snow in the last day. Snowpack at the lab is now 102% of median to date.

Conditions have already deteriorated this morning with gusty winds and significantly reduced visibility. The next 24 hours will be the heaviest portion of the storm. pic.twitter.com/B9BiHMH216

— UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab (@UCB_CSSL) March 1, 2024

Reportedly, this storm is a three-day event, most-likely lasting until late Sunday or early Monday (The New York Times earlier this morning):

Similar to the storm at the end of February last year, a storm off the Pacific Northwest coast is likely to create a favorable pattern to transport moisture from the Pacific to combine with a cold air mass and strong winds into the Sierra. That is likely to create additional days of snow, and possible whiteout conditions. There has been snow in the region this year, but not nearly as much as during last winter.

The snowpack in the Sierra, which provides 30 percent of the state’s water supply for the year, is only about 80 percent of what it should be by Febr. 28. This storm could help the region catch up.

Forecasters warned Friday morning that this storm will be slow to exit. Winds should begin to ease some Monday, but snow showers are likely to linger through Monday and possibly Tuesday. Another burst of snow is possible in the middle of next week.

Of course, making all this shit worse is climate change, and it’s only going to get worse. Yesterday, Joe Biden took aim at the ‘deniers’ of the obvious:

President Biden began his remarks during a Thursday visit to the southern border in Texas by addressing a devastating wildfire in the state’s panhandle and Oklahoma before calling climate change deniers “neanderthals.”

Speaking in the border city of Brownsville, Biden first addressed the ongoing wildfire that has ravaged a portion of Texas and destroyed more than one million acres.

“I’ve flown over a lot of these wildfires since I’ve been president,” Biden said. “Flown over more land burned to the ground. All the vegetation gone more than the entire state of Maryland in square footage.”

“The idea there’s no such thing as climate change. I love that, man,” he added. “I love some of my Neanderthal friends who still think there’s no climate change.”

BFD, or not, yet here we are once again…

(Illustration out front: ‘The Blue Umbrella,” (1914), color woodcut on paper, by Helen Hyde, and found here.)