Gotta love the Pacific Ocean

NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory

I had a conversation recently on the topic of people who don't see Los Angeles as a beach city or California as a coastal place — who are just not aware in their bones and their daily lives that the presence of the Pacific off to the left is integral to basically everything. You just want to shrug "OK." It's as true on the Death Valley sand dunes or at the top of Mt. Whitney as it is at Venice Beach or on the bandstand at Mariachi Plaza.

That's a segue to today's NOAA weather photo showing the next drought-buster lined up out there to our west. The free water will be here Friday morning.

Want a concise weather forecast with context? The NOAA summary pretty much says it all, I think.

Low Pressure System Deepens, Heads for Parched California

Widespread precipitation has continued over the western half of the U.S. which is a welcome sight to many of the areas affected by the drought. The first system which has delivered much of the rain and snow to the West Coast/Intermountain West today will have a slight lull overnight Thursday as the first system winds down and treks inland. The big, show-stopping system will begin to show its teeth by Friday morning. This deepening cyclone will begin to push heavy rain onshore to California on Friday morning and will sweep across the Desert Southwest, the Intermountain West, and the central Rockies by Friday evening. Showers and thunderstorms will begin to ramp up on Friday afternoon in southern California and may bring the possibility of flash flooding. Higher elevations stretching from the Sierra Nevada range to the northern and central Rockies can expect heavy snows with totals amounting to over a foot. The upper level low associated with this system will meander towards southern California and will move inland later in the weekend. Meanwhile, the arctic surface boundary draped across the Rockies and towards the British Columbia coastline will stay put through Saturday which will provide a focus for continuous snowfall across the mountains. Thus, expect this stormy and snowy pattern to continue through the weekend.

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