The following is an excerpt with permission from the Weather West Blog. By Daniel Swain of Weather WestYet another extraordinary period of California weatherWell, things are finally calming down, weather-wise, in California after a rather extraordinary season. That is a truly remarkable statement, especially since the sustained centennial-scale warming trend in California has made it very difficult to experience long durations of record-breaking cold temperatures in recent decades. It depicts a remarkably warm global ocean, punctuated by extremely warm temperatures near the tropical west coast of South America and unusually cool water near California and the west coast of North America. This is despite remarkably cool patches of water in two regions: the sub-Antarctic eastern Pacific west of South America, and the mid-latitude East Pacific along the coast of western North America (including along the California coast).

Source: Los Angeles Times April 11, 2023 08:30 UTC