After a stretch of treacherous rains across the Los Angeles region and its recent burn scars, the coming days will bring a needed respite — with the National Weather Service on Saturday predicting “very low impact weather for most areas the next several days.”
A “warming and drying trend” is predicted through the weekend, and it could be the end of the month before any more rain comes, the weather service reported. Temperatures were expected to rise into the 60s, and maybe the low 70s in certain areas, the service said.
“We’re really expecting it to dry out today and tomorrow,” Kristan Lund, a meteorologist with the weather service, said Saturday morning. “Everything is pointing towards being pretty dry.”
The better weather follows a wild week, with the biggest storm of the winter hitting Southern California on Thursday and packing a serious punch — causing extensive damage and life-threatening debris flows in the wake of last month’s devastating wildfires.
The region saw widespread street flooding and mudslides before the storm subsided Friday. The damage closed Pacific Coast Highway, where a member of the Los Angeles Fire Department was swept off the roadway and into the ocean by a debris flow before escaping his vehicle and being transported to a hospital with minor injuries, officials said.
The storm gave some in L.A. and its surrounding cities a sense of whiplash, coming after an incredibly long dry stretch last year that set the stage for the January fires. Scientists say such patterns are intensifying due to climate change.
Super wet weather followed by incredibly dry weather can also set the stage for the sort of wildfires that tore through the Palisades and Altadena last month, by first fueling vegetation growth, and then drying it out into perfect fuel for fire.
Winds, especially the Santa Ana winds that drive hot inland air over coastal areas in Southern California, are also a major factor in fire weather. Lund said winds could pick up later next week, and there could be some strong northerly gusts, but fire isn’t in the forecast — a silver lining of the recent rains.
“We’re not really too concerned about fire weather impacts, because of the recent rains,” she said.
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