The “devil winds” whipped San Diego County Monday, then quickly and mysteriously moved on, sparing the region the sort of hellacious horrors that the Santa Anas often bring in autumn. Having been told to brace for trouble, San Diegans collectively shrugged, sighed and went about their business. Most were unaware that the region was the beneficiary of timing and topography.
Forecasters expect San Diego to receive about one-half inch of rain this weekend, with rainfall likely Friday night into Saturday. According to the National Weather Service, low pressure over Southern California will tap into moisture from Tropical Storm Sergio. Rain is expected to continue through Sunday morning.
October 1 is New Year’s Day for water in the U.S. west. This year, Californians were bidding farewell to a dry 2018 water year (October 2017-September 2018), which saw precipitation totals fall below the annual average for much of the state. The return to drier than average conditions was a let-down following an extremely wet water year in 2017 that had helped bring about drought relief.
As Hurricane Michael threatens the East Coast, Hurricane Sergio is making Southern California beaches dangerous this week. Sergio is churning off the coast of Mexico, bringing dangerous surf conditions until Friday, according to the National Weather Service. Some minor coastal flooding is expected at south-facing beaches, from Oxnard all the way down to San Diego. Hazardous surf conditions will likely last through at least Thursday night. Estimates of surf heights are 5 to 8 feet with sets to 10 feet during the peak of the event.
Barely a week past summer, some Sierra Nevada peaks have received a dusting of snow — and a bigger accumulation is possible this weekend. The unsettled weather and brisker-than-normal temperatures that have lingered in the Bay Area this week brought hail and snow to the higher elevations of the Lake Tahoe area. The National Weather Service’s Reno office said that another wave of precipitation Friday night and Saturday could see an accumulation of 1 to 2 inches of snow at the higher passes, such as Tioga and Sonora. The greatest chance of snow showers at Yosemite’s Tuolumne Meadows is after 11 p.m. Saturday, the weather service said.
Last year, Downtown Los Angeles got exactly 4.72 inches of rain. That’s measly! It’s smaller than the screen on an iPhone. Less than the length of your sunglasses. Shorter than an average adult hand. And it’s 32 percent of what we normally get. That makes October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018 the third driest year since record-keeping began way back in 1877. Only 2001-2002 and 2006-2007 were worse.
It was the autumn of 1858, and Abraham Lincoln was on the ballot as a candidate for the U.S. Senate from Illinois. On the national front, the Compromise of 1850 divided the nation into free and slave states and was brewing political tensions during the years leading up to the Civil War. But off the coast of California — less than a decade into statehood — a different kind of storm was approaching. Tuesday, Oct. 2, marked 160 years since the San Diego Hurricane of 1858, the only hurricane on record to make landfall on the western coast of the United States. Newspaper clippings from the time and academic research since offer a glimpse into how the skies turned above the typically sunny shores of Southern California.
Southern California faces the possibility of flooding and slides in wildfire burn areas, including in the Cleveland National Forest in Orange County near the site of the recent Holy Fire, as a storm brings rain to the region this week.
Rosa will spread the risk of life-threatening flash flooding over the interior Southwest, while a non-tropical storm spreads soaking rain into much of California this week.
Rain showers moved across Northern California on Tuesday after months of extremely dry weather. “What’s that on the radar? Yep, it’s rain!” the Sacramento National Weather Service office tweeted. Showers were reported from the coast inland to the state capital and the San Joaquin Valley, but rainfall rates varied greatly. The 0.01 inch (0.25 millimeter) of rainfall received in Fresno by early afternoon was enough to crow about.
