Talk of Rain All Wet Because Skies Aren’t

If you are looking for rain, your best bet is to look north toward the Tehachapi Mountains.

There’s still a chance it will rain today in Los Angeles. But a low-pressure system brewing off the coast of Southern California that inspired hopes and predictions of rain has come up pretty dry.

“There’s a slight chance of a shower or thunderstorm in the (Los Angeles) Basin,” meteorologist Marty McKewon said. “Unfortunately, the system does not have a lot of moisture.”

Those chances are likely to build today and Saturday, McKewon said, because the winds that whirl over Southern California are expected to suck up additional water from a storm currently dousing Arizona and New Mexico.

But the better part of any rain and thunderstorms will fall in surrounding mountain ranges and in the desert. Around Santa Barbara, lightning was detected Thursday evening and 0.04 inches of rain had fallen.

“That low is expected to just sit there right through Saturday,” said McKewon, of the Kansas-based WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts to The Times.

“I don’t want to give the impression that there will be widespread rain, but there will be scattered shower and thunderstorm activity, especially likely tomorrow (Friday) and especially in the mountains” such as the Tehachapi range to the north and the Santa Rosa range to the southeast.

The system was expected to weaken Sunday and move into Central and Northern California, he said.

In the meantime, the way most of Los Angeles will experience this low-pressure system (called a “high low” by forecasters because it is clinging to the upper atmosphere) is in the form of lingering clouds that cast a familiar pall. The sun broke out through overcast skies later than usual Thursday, and similar conditions were expected today.

The high temperature in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday was a relatively mild 77 degrees, six degrees lower than the normal for this date in September.

Weather watchers say isolated storms are fairly typical this time of year, as the country moves into autumn and the jet stream, a flow of high-altitude, high-speed winds that control storms, migrates southward from Canada.

Some parts of Southern California reported tiny amounts of rain Wednesday night, according to the National Weather Service. A trace was recorded in Death Valley, and the San Bernardino County town of Beaumont weighed in with 0.2 inches.

Few longtime Los Angeles residents seemed to have their hearts set on rain.

“I never like to take too seriously what the weathermen say,” said Charlie Turner, who tends Dante’s View, an oasis of eucalyptus and lilies in Griffith Park which is being replanted after a summertime fire. “I can’t bear to be disappointed so much.”