How common is this? It really is not unusual to see beautiful weather in California during the winter. That is part of our state's draw. But whenever an amplified weather pattern develops over North America , this type of wild extremes can happen. By extremes I refer to the coldest conditions endured by mid-westerners since 1965. What do International Fall, Minnesota and Aberdeen, South Dakota have in common? They both experienced 42 below zero earlier this week. A well advertised arctic blast shoved its way south bringing wind chills to less than 60 below on Wednesday. The breath-taking cold weather was a result of very deep low pressure zone affecting the eastern 2/3rds of our nation. At the same time, an equally strong ridge of high pressure held sway over the western third. Besides the delightfully pleasant weather here in the Golden State , it proved to be good news for our friends in the Pacific Northwest that had suffered a spat of horrible weather- being drenched, frozen and blown away. They have had to deal with interstate highways under water, massive avalanche threats and record snowfall. That's not to mention a period of heavy ice that helped paralyze both Seattle and Portland.

Now that I think of it, our little inconvenience of Tule fog for a few weeks pales in comparison with what most of the rest of the nation has had to wake up to. But our weather fortunes are going to change. Following this lovely weather during which it felt more like spring than deep winter, the huge ridge of high pressure is predicted to move bodily east. That means the Dakotas will go from one extreme (-42 degrees) to another (well above normal temperatures in the low 60s). Wow! A 100-degree swing over a week's time. That's a drastic weather change, the kind you will only see in the middle of winter. For the San Joaquin valley, temperatures will slowly fall until we are back in the mid to upper 50s by Wednesday and Thursday. Our next chance for rain comes up mid-week, but does not appear to be a significant rain maker. Due to the proliferation of a La Nina episode in the equatorial Pacific, the rest of the winter in Kern County will most likely be drier than average. Its too bad, since February and March are the heart of the rainy season in California.

There may be a surprise. I have written about the Madden-Julian Oscillation in an earlier blog. That would be a welcomed surprise. But the dry and mild weather we've enjoyed this week is more than likely going to characterize the rest of the cool season. Of course, our severe storm season is coming up from February through April, and maybe a few storms will drop some heavy rain. But if you like the weather we've had recently, you'll probably be pretty happy with the first quarter of 2009.