Enjoy the warmth and sunshine, because forecasters say an unseasonable pattern of high temperatures in Southern California will end after Monday, bringing cooler weather and showers later this week.
“We’ve been stuck in this pretty warm and dry pattern but that’s all going to change starting Tuesday,” said Ryan Kittell, meteorologist with the National Weather Service Oxnard office.
The hot summer-like days that stretched from January into early February are pretty typical weather patterns for the winter season in Southern California, according to forecasters with the National Weather Service.
“We live in a unique place where we get the offshore flow and those Santa Ana winds during our wintertime, and that’s the main driver for the warm and dry period that we’ve had over the last couple of weeks,” Kittell said.
Once a storm approaches, the winds change direction. Instead of coming from the east, the winds will come from the ocean and provide a cooler air mass, he said.
“It is very typical for us to have these pretty sharp swings,” Kittell said. “It’s not that typical that we have had such a long, pretty much a full-month period with no rain and pretty warm conditions.”
Forecasters said Monday will be the last warm day of the pattern, with highs around 10 degrees above normal. The coastal and mountain areas will be in the high 60s, and downtown Los Angeles will have a high of 80 degrees.
Temperatures are expected to drop into the 60s on Tuesday and remain there for the rest of the week. There might be a small warm-up on Friday but it will stay pretty cool compared to what Southern California has been experiencing the last few weeks, Kittell said.
These lower temperatures are expected to persist into next week, “because we have a series of storms headed our way,” he said.
The first one will reach the Los Angeles area late Tuesday night and into early Wednesday with light to moderate rain. Expected rain totals are predicted to be anywhere between half an inch to one inch, forecasters say.
“Usually that type of rain just gives us issues on the roads with some increased traffic and maybe some minor flooding on the roads,” Kittell said.
On top of the wet conditions, some strong winds will accompany the storm, especially in the mountain areas where gusts are expected to reach 30 mph to 50 mph.
The National Weather Service issued a high surf advisory for Ventura County beaches Monday morning because of large breaking waves of 4 to 7 feet with dangerous rip currents. The advisory will remain in effect until Wednesday night.
High waves have already rocked Santa Barbara County beaches, knocking a 26-year-old surfer off his board Saturday. The man was rescued after he held onto the top of a lobster trap buoy, which prevented him from drifting farther out to sea.
This storm will also produce snow for some mountain communities and major roads in elevations above 5,000 feet.
“So it’s probably good to avoid the roads traveling through the mountains, if you can, especially Tuesday night,” Kittell said.
“Once that storm moves through, we might still see lingering showers on Wednesday night but then we’ll get a break through Saturday,” Kittell said.
On Saturday night, a large-scale, slow-moving low-pressure trough will move into the West Coast, bringing rain throughout the area overnight, continuing through most of Sunday.
Another two or three storms are predicted to roll in next week but forecasters have yet to estimate how much rain that system will produce and how intense it could be.
