‘Storm Door’ Creaking Open

Southern Californians can expect a wet weather pattern to prevail for three to five days, beginning today with a chance of showers in the moisture-starved Los Angeles Basin, forecasters say.

“We’re looking at an increasing chance of rain through the weekend,” said meteorologist Rick Dittmann of WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times. “It looks like we have a chance of rain Sunday, unsettled conditions Monday and a chance of rain Tuesday.”

Dittmann’s outlook is supported by the National Weather Service, which sees a 30% chance of showers today in the Los Angeles area, advancing to 60% on Saturday with windy, cooler weather and highs in the middle to upper 60s.

As for next week, Dittmann said, he is keeping his fingers crossed that the passing weather front will open the “storm door” for California and bring much needed rain and snow. His thinking goes like this:

As a slow-moving low-pressure system, which has produced a “100-year” storm in parts of the Pacific Northwest, moves eastward it may carve out a low-pressure area behind it off the coast, permitting the jet stream to pour through and bring a succession of precipitation-rich weather fronts to California, now in the third year of subnormal rainfall.

“It’s just a possibility at this time,” Dittmann said. “But now we are starting to see some good signs. And, that’s what California needs.”

Dittmann noted that since the current rainfall season started on July 1 only 1.52 inches of moisture have been recorded at the Los Angeles Civic Center as of Thursday, compared to the normal rainfall for the date of 5.47 inches.

Meanwhile, the heavy blanket of fog that reduced visibility to nearly zero in parts of Southern California and moved into inland valleys Wednesday night and early Thursday is expected to diminish as the weather front moves in.

The dense fog caused more than a half-dozen flights to be diverted from Orange County’s John Wayne Airport to as far away as San Diego Wednesday night. But officials said flight operations at Los Angeles International Airport were not significantly affected.

The fog led agriculture officials to cancel scheduled spraying for Medflies in the San Gabriel Valley for a second straight night Thursday. Fog slowed Wednesday morning commuter traffic on metropolitan streets and freeways.

The weather service issued an advisory, warning of fog in coastal areas from Santa Barbara to southern Orange County. It was canceled about mid-morning on Thursday.

The high temperature at the Civic Center on Thursday was 75 degrees.