A cold spring storm system moving into Southern California on Saturday is expected to bring light rain by 3 p.m. followed by a quarter to a half inch of rain through Sunday.
“The latest storm total appears to be about a quarter inch to 1 1/2 inches [inches] “Mountain areas are the hardest hit,” said meteorologist Rose Schoenfeld of the National Weather Service's Oxnard station.
Snow is expected to fall on mountains above 6,000 feet, with up to 10 inches falling on the highest peaks and up to an inch of dust falling on the grapevine through Sunday morning.
Temperatures remained stuck in the 50s to 60s across the region on Saturday, eight to 15 degrees below normal, and are expected to remain below normal through Monday.
Temperatures this weekend [will be] “It struggles to get to 60 degrees,” Schoenfeld said.
The late-season storm is expected to pack wind gusts of 20 mph to 40 mph and peak along the Interstate 5 corridor and Antelope Valley.
The latest in a string of wet weekends is expected to be followed by at least a week of warm, dry weather starting with above-normal temperatures on Tuesday, but not necessarily the last of the season.
“For six to 10 days, we don't see signs of any storm,” Schoenfeld said. “Beyond this uncertainty.”
Normal rainfall for April is about seven-tenths of an inch.
“If we get one quarter, we won't be close,” Schoenfeld said, acknowledging that “we rarely see a regular, regular year.”
Snow is also expected in California's Sierra Nevada, where up to 8 inches of snow is expected in the Mammoth Mountain area later Saturday, and up to 12 inches is expected on the higher peaks of the Southern Sierra.
Meteorologist Mark Deutschendorf of the Reno National Weather Station said the new snowfall will moderately add to a late-season surge that has pushed snowpack to the current level of 118% of normal.
“The whole theme of this winter season is that it started out well below average, and then in February and March a series of storms pushed the total up,” Deutschendorf said. “We were able to rally, catch up and go a little bit beyond normal.”
The system moved in from the west, hitting central California early Saturday morning, dropping just over a third of an inch in San Francisco and just under four-tenths of an inch in San Jose before moving across the Central Coast, meteorologist Roger Gass said. at the National Weather Service Bay Area station.
Scattered rain and isolated thunderstorms were still possible Saturday afternoon, but there were no reports of damage or flooding, Gass said.
Gass said the rainfall brought the season's totals above average, or up to 120% of average.
