As Mammoth Mountain, California continues to accumulate snowfall totals of record proportions, lower elevations are seeing tremendous rainfall. Like last year, the upper winds are oriented just so to allow storm after storm to pound the West Coast of the United States. As the current system moves inland, drier weather will dominate through the Christmas holiday and into next week.

From the ImpactWeather StormWatch team:
A strong Pacific storm system will continue to impact the West Coast and parts of the Intermountain West through Wednesday with high-elevation snow and heavy lowland rains. Additional snowfall up to a foot or more is expected for the Sierra Nevada above 6000 feet. Over the Southern Rockies 3-5 feet of snow will be possible above 7500 feet. Additional rainfall amounts of 3-6 inches will be possible with isolated amounts over 8 inches over southern California, which will lead to an additional flooding/mudslide concern. For inland areas of the Southwest, 2-4 inches of rain will be possible into mid week.

YourWeatherBlog has written about California and the effects of the Pineapple Express before. You can read a previous post here. Flooding along the track of the southern jet stream, from California to Kazakhstan can be read here.

Rain in the lower elevations and snow in the higher elevations as yet another storm lashes the coast of California. Image: ImpactWeather Gmaps.

The long-range GFS numerical model for Sunday indicates high pressure off the California coast, heavy rainfall for the Pacific Northwest and a strengthening low pressure area off the East Coast with Nor'easter potential.