Weather Acting Like It’s December

You’d think it was December or something.

Forecasters say there will be a 40% chance of scattered showers late today, followed by a cold, windy weekend--and more rain possible by Monday.

That may seem somewhat difficult to believe since Thursday’s high temperature reached a balmy 75 in downtown Los Angeles, five degrees higher than normal. Relative humidity ranged from 93% to 34%.

Blame the gloomy turnaround on a couple of storm systems in the Pacific that are creeping this way.

“It won’t be heavy rain, maybe half an inch Friday night,” said forecaster Dan Bowman of WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times.

Snow is expected in the local mountains above 8,000 feet tonight, lowering to the 6,000-foot level by Saturday morning.

Even a slight rain would bolster the slightly-wetter-than-usual trend. Rainfall since July 1 is 3.60 inches, compared to a normal of 2.63, the National Weather Service said.

“It looks like we’re going to dodge the bullet as far as any rainy weather on the weekend goes,” Bowman said.

But he added that Monday’s showers will be preceded by some gusty winds over the weekend, when local temperatures are not expected to break out of the 60s.

The change in the weather is being attributed to the movement eastward of a high-pressure area that has been protecting us from Arctic-born storms that have been pounding the Pacific Northwest and Northern California, the National Weather Service said.

One group looking forward to going outdoors the next few days are surfers, who will take advantage of heavy surf at west- and north-facing beaches in the South Bay.

How heavy will it be?

“We put our scales out there and got a reading of 2.2 tons,” said senior Los Angeles County lifeguard Ira Gruber, telling an old lifeguard joke. “Actually, it’ll be down a bit from the 3- to 5-foot waves we had today (Thursday).”

With the approaching storms, small-craft advisories have been issued for the outer coastal waters today.