L.A. winter storms: Southland to get its share after 6 p.m.
As a powerful dual storm system moves into California on Wednesday, weather forecasters say Los Angeles County can expect to see its share of the rain sometime after 6 p.m.
Rainfall from the first storm is expected to last until Thursday morning, said Stuart Seto of the National Weather Service. It could bring as much as a quarter-inch of rain to L.A. County.
A second, stronger storm is expected Friday morning, Seto said. That storm could bring up to 1 to 2 inches of rain, and as much as 4 inches in the mountains.
PHOTOS: Los Angeles prepares for rain storms
The San Francisco Bay Area had already started to see rain Wednesday morning, said Austin Cross, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Monterey. Urban regions there are expecting a half to three-quarters of an inch of rain during the first storm, with mountain areas likely getting 1 to 2 inches.
The heaviest periods of rain are expected to be between 2 and 5 p.m., Cross added.
The second storm Friday morning should bring up to three-quarters of an inch of rain in the Bay Area, with the mountain areas potentially seeing up to 4 inches.
The soaking won’t bring much in the way of relief for California’s severe drought, which prompted Gov. Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency last month.
“It’s still pretty far below what’s normal for rain season, it won’t catch us up,” Cross said.
Meanwhile, L.A. County officials were asking residents and business to turn off irrigation systems to save valuable water during the rainstorms.
“We all need to do our part to help conserve water, so the very best and most effective thing anyone of us can do to take immediate advantage of the coming rain is to simply shut our sprinkler systems off,” said county Supervisor Don Knabe. “Your yard won’t need to be watered until later next week, at the very least.”
Combined, the weather systems combined are expected to produce the heaviest rainfall seen in the region since March 2011.
Twitter: @AdolfoFlores3
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