Weekend cold snap is in store for Southland
Temperatures could drop 20 degrees by Sunday, forecasters say, bringing rain and increased risk of mudslides in fire-damaged areas.
Southern Californians can probably go straight from sunglasses to ski goggles this weekend, as the nastiest chill in a while is expected to blast through the unusually mild autumn weather.
The storm will probably bring rain and snow at the beginning of next week, with frost possibly covering the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains down to 2,000 feet in elevation, according to the National Weather Service.
"This is going to be our first whopper snowstorm of the season," said Bill Patzert, a climatologist with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge. "You get one of these every five to 10 years."
This storm marks the end of a strangely cool summer and an unusually sultry autumn. Temperatures have been running about four degrees above normal in the last three months because of dry, warm Santa Ana conditions from the Southwest, Patzert said. Temperatures could drop 20 degrees in a few days, he said.
In Woodland Hills, for example, high temperatures are expected to drop from a toasty 81 degrees Thursday afternoon to 57 degrees by Sunday.
The nastiest part of the storm -- which is making its way down from the Arctic -- will pummel the region Sunday through Wednesday, said Bill Hoffer, a spokesman with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.
Daytime high temperatures could be 15 degrees below normal, and nighttime lows could dip into the 30s in the Antelope Valley, the weather service said.
Most Southland residents will see some showers, Hoffer said. "When a system like this comes down, everybody's going to get a little something," he said. "The whole atmosphere is saturated."
The region really needs this storm, Patzert said, because it has been enduring one of the driest spells in the last half century of Los Angeles history, Patzert said. From March to November, just 0.2 inches of rain fell on the Los Angeles area, he said.
Unfortunately, he added, this storm does not spell a wet winter. "Definitely enjoy this one," he said.
Farmers will be grateful for the rain, especially since temperatures are not expected to drop below freezing and damage the produce, said Scott Deardorff, president of the Ventura County Farm Bureau's board of directors.
"This time of year, when we get rain, it usually soaks in pretty well," said Deardorff, whose farm grows lettuce and strawberries.
