The Variability of Wintertime Precipitation in the Region of California

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Abstract
Rotated principal component (RPC) analysis, subject to the varimax criterion and including area weighting, is applied to a 58-yr record (1931–88) of monthly- and seasonal-mean Climatic Division precipitation anomalies for the contiguous United States to document wintertime precipitation variability in the region of California. Rotated principal components (time series) derived from this analysis are related to anomalies of seasonal-mean global sea surface temperature, and monthly mean Northern Hemisphere 500-hPa geopotential height and sea level pressure (SLP). Wintertime seasonal-mean precipitation in California is captured by two RPCs. The first RPC documents coherent precipitation anomalies centered in northern California, Oregon, southern Idaho, and eastern Washington, and explains the largest portion of area-averaged variance of any of the patterns in the decomposition. A second RPC captures coherent precipitation variability in the south coast and southeast desert regions of California, sou... Abstract Rotated principal component (RPC) analysis, subject to the varimax criterion and including area weighting, is applied to a 58-yr record (1931–88) of monthly- and seasonal-mean Climatic Division precipitation anomalies for the contiguous United States to document wintertime precipitation variability in the region of California. Rotated principal components (time series) derived from this analysis are related to anomalies of seasonal-mean global sea surface temperature, and monthly mean Northern Hemisphere 500-hPa geopotential height and sea level pressure (SLP). Wintertime seasonal-mean precipitation in California is captured by two RPCs. The first RPC documents coherent precipitation anomalies centered in northern California, Oregon, southern Idaho, and eastern Washington, and explains the largest portion of area-averaged variance of any of the patterns in the decomposition. A second RPC captures coherent precipitation variability in the south coast and southeast desert regions of California, sou...