Rain arriving in California as stormy springtime week revs up

Although we’re in a bit of a lull for extreme weather to keep an eye on — other than high heat here and there, including India — this is more of a pattern reload than anything. In fact, it’s turning wet in California as soon as today and another major central U.S. springtime storm is days away.

Weather Watch

Western U.S. precipitation. Here comes the Southern California rain. A general 1 to 3 inches is expected to fall over coming days to the west of the Transverse Ranges north and east of Los Angeles. Similar or more is on tap for coastal areas northward through the Pacific Northwest. Inland, the forecast calls for feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada, where it’s still needed in a so-far below average snowfall winter.

Central U.S. severe weather. Last week featured a near-record intense low-pressure area over the central United States. This week we give it another go. On Friday the western storminess re-congeals to the east of the Rockies and likely goes boom. Weather models have been forecasting low pressure into the 970s (millibars) from Kansas to Minnesota. The volatile situation is ripe for another multi-day severe weather outbreak late week into the weekend, a blizzard in the Plains and a new round of widespread high wind.

Lightning links

Camera shows Florida EF2 tornado barreling toward FOX 35 Orlando TV station on Monday.

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Temperature spread Tuesday

It was 104 near La Puerta and Hidalgo in south Texas on Saturday, the hottest observed in the Lower 48 during 2025 so far, and about as hot as it gets this early in the youthful warm season. With a minus-29 at Peter Sinks, Utah, there was a range of 133 degrees for the day.

Substantial but still below the maximum spread of the year, according to Weather Prediction Center data: That was 146 degrees on Feb. 12., when it reached 95 in Harlingen, Texas and dipped to minus-51 in Peter Sinks.

In larger context the 133-degree spread over the weekend still outdoes many recent years. The graph above shows daily temperature spread since late 2011.

Temperature range peaks and valleys are in the inverse of the actual temperatures for the year. The largest spreads are mostly in winter, or early spring, while the low points come in the heat of summer.

This is because winter can still feature warmth in the South while extreme cold may reside in the northern tier. In midsummer there is some kind of relative warmth all over.

The largest spread in this dataset happened Jan. 30, 2023, at 152 degrees, when it was 90 near Dundee, Florida, and minus-62 at our old and cold friend, Peter Sinks.

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Weekday morning newsletter by a journalist/forecaster that connects weather and climate change dots while occasionally stirring the pot.

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