Sunny Weekend Expected After Showers Today

A weather front is scheduled to pass through Southern California this morning, offering a fair chance of rain--and snow in the mountains--but forecasters said the weekend should be bright and sunny, with temperatures rising to the 70s.

Meteorologists said that the storm system is weak and that clouds could be breaking up by this afternoon, with southwest winds gusting to 40 m.p.h. in the deserts.

A buildup of high pressure inland should turn things around by Saturday, and forecasters said there is even a chance of a mild Santa Ana condition as the weekend goes on.

“The front should be past by noon,” said Cary Schudy, a spokesman for Earth Environment Service, a private forecasting firm based in San Francisco. “Saturday and Sunday look fine--but there could be some heavy snow in the Sierra.

“The system that came through last Tuesday came barreling through so fast that it hardly had time to leave much snow in any one place, but this one should be slower, and the cloud band is broader, too.”

The National Weather Service forecast snow above 6,000 feet today in the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains.

Winter storm warnings were issued for the southern and northern Sierra, with a prediction of as much as 18 inches of new snowfall at altitudes above 5,000 feet.

A minor chance of showers was also seen for the Southern California deserts, where today’s temperatures were expected to hit the lower 60s in the high desert and the lower 70s in the low desert, with little change expected before the early part of next week.

Morning tides expected to rise to 7 feet or above kept warnings in effect along lower coastal areas, but heavy swells that would have made the tides potentially dangerous failed to develop, and the weather service said most of the danger should be past by Saturday.

Meanwhile, Southern Californians who seize the warmer weather Saturday and Sunday to pay their first 1987 visit to the beach were told they can expect moderate surf (to 4 feet) in most places, with air temperature to the upper 60s or lower 70s and water temperature about 10 degrees cooler.

Weekend sailing weather should be excellent for experienced mariners in tight boats: a 22-knot west wind with 4-foot swells inshore this afternoon, shifting northwest and rising to 30 knots farther out.

High at Los Angeles Civic Center Thursday was 64, with relative humidity ranging from 50% to 89%. Forecasters said today should be about the same, with the chance of rain overnight or during the morning hours pegged at 40%.