Drizzle May Turn to Rain Over Long Memorial Day Weekend

A layer of soggy air from the sea will keep Southern California skies overcast and perhaps even offer the chance of rain for the Memorial Day weekend, weather forecasters said Thursday.

“I’m afraid the holiday won’t be much different from the way it’s been all this week,” said Cary Schudy, meteorologist and spokesman for Earth Environment Service, a private forecasting firm based in San Francisco.

“There is an upper-level trough of low pressure that stretches along the West Coast all the way from Baja California to Alaska, and it is pushing a deep layer of moist marine air inland to cover the Southland. We think it is going to become more intense as the days pass, with probable drizzle in the hours before dawn (today) and Saturday and maybe even a few showers Sunday and Monday.”

The National Weather Service offered general agreement with this forecast and pegged the chance of measurable rain at 10% today and Saturday, rising to 30% Sunday and Monday, with very little change in temperature.

The high in Santa Ana on Thursday was 71, and forecasters said today’s high should be in the 60s, with more of the same in store until at least the middle of next week.

Cool at the Beach

Beach temperatures, too, were forecast for the upper 60s each afternoon, with water temperature two to three degrees cooler, surf in the two- to four-foot range on a slow 13-second interval at most locations and a sea breeze rising to 16 m.p.h. each afternoon.

Huntington Beach lifeguard Kai Weisser said conditions have been “pretty rough” for swimmers this week, and the relatively warm water combined with continuing strong rip currents could keep lifeguards busy this weekend--particularly if the sun breaks through.

Holiday yachtsmen who stay close inshore can expect west to southwest winds rising to 15 knots on a two-foot swell most afternoons from Point Conception to the Mexican border, and those who venture farther out may find the wind shifting west to northwest at 15 knots and seas rising to five feet.

Visitors to the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains can expect mostly cloudy skies in the night and morning hours, with occasional sprinkles today and Saturday becoming occasional showers Saturday and Sunday mornings before opening up to partial cloudiness in the afternoons, with temperatures rising to the upper 40s and mid-50s from overnight lows in the mid to upper 30s at resort levels.

The Sierra was expected to remain unseasonably cool, with scattered afternoon and evening thunderstorms and the snow level ranging from the 8,000-foot level in the south to the 7,000-foot level in the north.

Desert skies, however, were expected to remain fair through most of the holiday, with west to southwest winds gusting to 25 m.p.h. at times in the high desert, where temperatures were expected to reach the mid-70s. Low desert temperatures were forecast about 10 degrees warmer.

Arizona’s holiday weekend was expected to be generally cloudy, with showers and thunderstorms over the northern and eastern parts of the state giving way to sunnier skies as the days go by, with highs to the 60s in the mountains and to near 90 in the deserts.

Las Vegas visitors who venture outside the casinos should see fair skies with highs to the mid-80s.

San Francisco’s long weekend was expected to feature the usual morning low clouds, clearing inland by midday but remaining overcast near the ocean, and evening showers in the North Bay hills and temperatures to the mid-60s most days.