With firestorms and ongoing warnings about high fire danger, the thought of a weekend rainstorm brings relief to the people of Southern California. The rain might help with fighting the fire, but weather experts say it likely won’t stop this bad fire season.
The storm will bring helpful rain, but it won’t stop the fire season, according to expert Alex Tardy from the National Weather Service.
Ryan Kittell from the NWS said that since the rain is expected to be light, there is a low chance of debris flows in areas that have been burned. However, the chances of ending the fire season are also low.
Meteorologist Kittell said that if we have another short dry period, it will cancel out any benefits from this rain.
A dry period might be coming soon. In the long run, it looks like there will be more weeks of dry weather after this storm.
Kittell said we may have dry weather after this weekend and into early February.
Light rain is expected.
Forecasters are sure that it will rain and snow in the mountains this weekend. They expect the rain to be light, likely less than half an inch over the three days from Saturday to Monday.
The weather predicts that San Diego, San Clemente, and Covina could get up to half an inch of rain. Downtown Los Angeles and Long Beach might see about two-fifths of an inch, while Anaheim, Redondo Beach, and San Clemente could receive one-third of an inch. Santa Clarita and Canoga Park may get around a quarter of an inch.
If those totals are right, they would end a record dry period for downtown Los Angeles. It’s been 262 days since downtown L.A. received more than one-tenth of an inch of rain in a day, which happened on May 5.
The old record was 253 days in a row, from February 25 to November 3, 2008.
Downtown L.A. has had very little rain since the water year started on October 1. Since then, there has only been 0.16 inches of rain, making this one of the driest beginnings to the water year ever recorded. So far this water year, only 3% of the usual rainfall for downtown, which is 6.19 inches, has been recorded. For the full water year, downtown L.A. averages 14.25 inches of rain.
Elsewhere across Southern California, this has been the driest start to the water year on record.
“We’ve never been in this situation before.” We’ve never seen these numbers in mid-January before. “Never,” said analyst Tardy from the weather service. The dry weather and strong Santa Ana winds, which have happened five times this month, create a very tough situation.
Kittell said that the time and amount of rain expected soon are still unsure. Some places might get less rain or up to an inch. It could rain anytime from Saturday to Monday, but the highest chance is Saturday night to Sunday morning.
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