Spring may have sprung, but Southern California still won’t get a full departure this week from the wintry, wet weather 2023 has brought so far.
A storm system from the Bay Area continued on Wednesday to slide south, said Todd Hall, a National Weather Service meteorologist, and was expected on Thursday to bring showers and perhaps some hail, thunderstorms, tornadoes and waterspouts.
“The storm system will continue to dig south through Thursday morning,” the meteorologist said.
As of Wednesday afternoon, most of Los Angeles County had received less than one inch of rain since the storm arrived Tuesday night, Hall said, with downtown L.A. collecting 0.7 of an inch and the San Fernando Valley less than half of that. Along the coast, from Santa Monica to Malibu, up to 1.78 inches had fallen.
The county was forecast get an additional inch or less into early Thursday.
“Thunderstorms are more likely to happen in Orange County and the western part of the Inland Empire (and in) West Covina and Pomona — in the gap between the LA Basin and the Inland Empire,” Gonsalves said.
On Thursday, much of Orange County is likely to get three-quarters of an inch of rain or less, with more in communities closer to the Santa Ana Mountains. As of Wednesday afternoon, from the county’s coast to inland cities such as Fullerton and Irvine, most places were hovering around half an inch received.
After Thursday’s storm rolls out, a few dry days are expected.
But the current weather patterns in the region favor lower temperatures and precipitation, said Weather Service meteorologist Philip Gonsalves — and it may be another month before Southern California is fully back to its sunny, dry self.
“I think we stay in this general wet pattern for the foreseeable future,” he said. “As we start approaching May, chances for precipitation decrease significantly.”
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