High Winds Clear Way for Calmer, Cooler Days

High winds cleared Southern California skies Thursday, but the National Weather Service said the next few days should be calmer, cooler, just a bit cloudy--and pretty much what you’d expect for a mid-February weekend.

High temperature at Los Angeles Civic Center on Thursday reached 67 degrees, with relative humidity ranging from 20% to 78%. The forecast called for a degree or two of cooling today and Saturday, under partly cloudy skies.

Weather service meteorologists said a developing upper-level low-pressure system moved across Nevada on Thursday, creating strong north-to-northwest winds and hurling a band of light rain showers (and snow showers) across southern Nevada, southeastern California and northern Arizona. That little storm was expected to pass out of Nevada and California by today.

The California Highway Patrol issued an advisory against camper and trailer travel on the Santa Monica Freeway when winds rose to 30 m.p.h. in the vicinity Thursday afternoon.

Small-craft advisories were up along the coast from Point Conception to the Mexican border for west-to-northwest winds gusting 25 and 30 knots on inner and outer waters.

Forecasters said the seashore should be a bit less wild through the weekend, with winds easing to 20 knots, surf running three to five feet in most places and the temperature rising to the mid-60s by midafternoon.

The San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains were expecting a weekend of variable cloudiness, with northerly winds gusting to 30 m.p.h. at times and resort level temperatures in the 40s to 50s, after overnight lows below freezing.