West Coast Storm Waves Harbinger Of Upcoming Stormy U.S. Including Here In New England.

Two men trapped on debris in the water after the 
end of the Santa Cruz, California wharf collapsed
under an onslaught of huge waves from offshore
Pacific Ocean storms. 

 Huge battering waves have been smashing into the California coast for days, and that state of affairs is likely to continue into the weekend. 

As it is, the part of the Santa Cruz Wharf fell into the Pacific Ocean Monday after waves tore at its supports. Three people were stranded on the floating debris. Two were rescued and the other managed to swim to shore. 

However, at Sunset State Beach along Monterey Bay, a man died after waves pinned him beneath debris. 

Residents along part of the shore south of Santa Cruz were also evacuated due to large, battering waves.   Many boats were sunk or otherwise damaged as huge swells crashed into Santa Cruz Harbor. 

Although the waves have diminished slightly since Tuesday, high surf advisories linger along the California Coast through Sunday. Large breaking waves of up to 10 to 15 feet are likely along the central coast.

The huge waves are tied to immense storms out over the Pacific Ocean. Some of that storminess is making its way inland along the Washington, Oregon and northern California coasts, and that has implications for storminess in broad sections of the United States, including here in New England.

The storms are already smashing ashore in the Pacific Northwest.  As of this morning, the coast of Washington State was under coastal flooding and high wind warnings, and high surf advisories. 

 One of these storms impulse from the Pacific has already crossed the Rocky Mountains and will start to cause trouble in Texas and Louisiana today.  There, severe thunderstorms, perhaps a few tornadoes and some local flash floods and perhaps a couple of tornadoes will menace the region on this Boxing Day.

That one should largely fade, giving us only clouds and the risk of very light precipitation Saturday. 

Hot on the heels of this storm will be another the will have blown in off the Pacific Ocean and then dived down into the central Plains. This one, like the one today, also seems destined to create some severe weather and flash floods, this time in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Eventually this storm will curve northeastward and affect us here in New England Sunday and Monday. Unfortunately for you winter lovers, this one looks like a rain event, with maybe some freezing rain to start, especially in eastern Vermont.

Morning temperatures this morning were only in the single digits, with some spots below zero. Same thing should happen tonight. That's really chilling the ground, so when rain arrives Saturday night or early Sunday, it will probably freeze on many surfaces even if the air temperature is a little above freezing.  So we'll keep an eye on that. 

This could be a fairly wet storm for us.  Early guesses range from a half inch to an inch of rain, but we'll know more about that as we get closer to the storm's start time.

After that yet another storm will blast into the Pacific Northwest, cross the Rockies, get into the Plains, redevelop and create a third storm that would affect us around New Years Day 

  We still have lots of questions as to whether that one will be mostly rain, mostly snow or just one of those All Of The Above storms. 

We also don't know how strong it will be, but it's possible it could be a fairly strong one. As usual we'll just have to wait and see. 

EDITORS NOTE: Apologies for the lack of photos or other illustrations with this post earlier. Either a problem  with the Blogger platform, or an issue with the WiFi at the hotel I'm staying at is not allowing me to add photos. I hope the problem will be fixed for future posts. Once I got home to a better connection I was able to fix it