Cooler Air Moving In : As Weekend Nears, So Does Rain

The warm, pleasant weather that Orange County has experienced over the past several days will not hang around for the weekend, say the forecasters, as a Pacific storm pushes cool and unstable air toward Southern California.

“It’s not real wet,” Cary Schudy of the private Earth Environment Service in San Francisco said Thursday, as he watched a very large, cold low-pressure area swirling off the coast, “but it is going to send some shower activity down through Southern California.”

Today is expected to be breezy and cool, with a 20% chance of showers in the county by tonight, according to the National Weather Service. The skies should begin to clear Saturday afternoon.

With a protective high-pressure system drifting away to the east, allowing low clouds and fog to spread inland, today’s coastal highs should be in the 60s, rising slightly by Saturday.

By Sunday, the weather should be mostly clear, with temperatures of 64 to 68 along the beaches and 68 to 74 in the valleys.

Thursday’s high at the Orange County Civic Center reached 72 after an overnight low of 48. Relative humidity ranged from 69% to 38%.

There won’t be “significant precipitation” at Southland ski resorts during the weekend, the weather service said, although snow levels should drop to 5,000 feet by early Saturday.

Mountain resort area highs are expected to be in the mid-30s to mid-40s during a windy weekend. In the northern deserts, where winds will be 20 to 35 m.p.h., highs will be in the 50s to mid-60s. They will be 68 to 77 in the southern deserts.

Pacific storms will continue to kick up a higher-than-normal westerly swell and surf along local beaches today and during the weekend. The surf is expected to be 3 to 5 feet along Orange and Los Angeles County shorelines and 4 to 6 feet at Santa Barbara and Ventura.

The surf could reach 7 feet at some Ventura County and San Diego County points and 6 feet on some Los Angeles County beaches.

There was a small-craft advisory for Ventura Harbor Thursday afternoon because of rough seas 6 to 7 feet.