Light rain coming to Southern California, with much colder temps and mountain snow later this week.
“The next 3 to 4 days are going to be pretty mild with lots of sunshine,” said National Weather Service meteorologist John Nielsen-Gammon. “We’ve got some thunderstorms developing here in the San Fernando Valley.”
Rain is also slowly moving out of the region, and could arrive by Wednesday.
“We have a nice little rain band that will extend to Los Angeles and Orange County,” Nielsen-Gammon said before rain will eventually fall in the Southland.
Rain will begin to move from the mountains in Ventura on Tuesday night, and rain in Santa Barbara County and elsewhere by Wednesday, the weather service said.
“It’s certainly drizzling down in the mountains right now,” Nielsen-Gammon said with temperatures forecast to be in the mid-50s and snow moving into the region by late Wednesday.
“It’s forecast [to] transition into a rain phase late in the day Wednesday with some snow at the upper elevations late in the day Wednesday and Thursday. It will continue into Friday for the low elevations,” he said.
Meteorologist Mike Koehler, a weather specialist for News 12’s San Fernando Valley bureau, said the storm could cause problems across Southern California, but that most of the precipitation would be coming from the mountains.
“A lot of the rain will occur on mountain ridges and some of the higher elevations so we’re not facing any significant flooding and it looks like we’re not going to have any major street closures,” he said.
On Wednesday in Los Angeles, the rain could arrive in the evening or early morning, Koehler said.
“We will see some localized snow fall with the heavy rains that come in from the mountains,” he said.
The rain could move east into the San Diego area, and could even result in isolated snow showers there, Nielsen-Gammon said.
“It could cause some moisture to build up down in northern San Diego County. Some locations may see showers develop,” he said.
He said the heaviest rainfall in Los Angeles County will be on the Sierra Nevada Mountains, but that other areas will also see some rain.
