County Meteorologist's Holiday Weekend Forecast

Rand Allan, DPW meteorologist

The Department of Public Works has its own meteorologist as part of its flood control staff. Here's Rand Allan's forecast for today and the rest of the holiday weekend.

Residual moisture from yesterday’s storm continues the chance of rain this morning, mainly in the form of widespread drizzle. Radar shows scattered showers approaching from Los Angeles in advance of a major winter storm, to arrive late morning/early afternoon.

Rainfall chances increase through the evening with heavy rain arriving later in the evening and continuing overnight. With the soils already saturated from yesterday’s rain, localized flooding during the early morning hours may be more of a problem with this storm.

Rain switches to showers mid-day on Saturday switching to showers mid-day and ending late Saturday night. The snow level falls rapidly with this storm, with snow levels near 5000’ overnight falling to 3000’-3500’ tomorrow afternoon. Snow amounts will generally be 2”-4” from 3500’ to 5000’ and 4”-8” above 5000’.

On County News Center: Be Prepared if You're Headed to the Snow

Strong winds will likely create blizzard-like conditions in the mountains with wind-chill temperatures well below freezing. If you don’t have to go outside during this storm….DON’T. Also, if you are out and about during the storm and encounter flooded roads or streams flowing over low water crossings, Turn Around, Don’t Drown.

Expected rain amounts will be around 1” coast to 2”-3” mountains, and ½” deserts.

Christmas Day will be partly cloudy and cold (white Christmas in the mountains!). Temperatures will slowly increase throughout the week. Weather models show a cutoff low pressure system drifting down the West Coast on Monday to settle offshore from San Diego. There is too much uncertainty in the models at this time to know when or if we will get any rain from this system.

Below: A DPW snowplow drive talks about keeping roads clear during snow earlier this year.