Sunny Weather to Give Way to Cooling, Clouds

Southern California’s weekend will start with bright sunshine and a few high clouds, but a minor cooling trend could begin with the new week, the National Weather Service said Thursday.

Mild Santa Ana conditions that have kept the air unseasonably warm and dry for the last few days will gradually subside as the coastal high-pressure area disintegrates, meteorologists explained, and a storm system rolling down from the Gulf of Alaska will start delivering a series of rainstorms to the northern part of the state.

Few showers--or none at all--were expected to reach Southern California. But cloudy skies and cooler temperatures were forecast as the edge of the weather system rolled past.

High temperature at Los Angeles Civic Center on Thursday was 83 degrees, with relative humidity ranging from a dry 30% to a still-drier 15%. More of the same was expected today and Saturday, with 5 or 6 degrees of cooling--not to mention early morning fog or low clouds--forecast for Sunday.

Beach weather should be pleasant, though cool, for most of the weekend.

Afternoon temperatures were expected to range from the upper 60s to the lower 70s, with water about 15 degrees cooler. Northeast winds to 18 m.p.h. and two to three feet of surf were predicted, while yachtsmen were told to prepare for one- to two-foot wind waves below inshore canyons from Point Conception to the Mexican border, combined with a two- to three-foot western swell.

Mountains should remain fair, forecasters said, with resort-level temperatures ranging from the low 50s to the low 60s, though some high cloudiness could develop by Sunday. The Sierra was expecting variable high cloudiness with highs to the mid-40s and overnight lows in the 20s, and a travelers’ advisory was in effect for dense fog overnight and through the mornings in the San Joaquin Valley.

Forecasters said desert days and nights should be fair, with the mercury reaching the 60s in the high desert and the 70s in the low desert while dipping near the freezing mark overnight.