Big Storm Expected to Hit Sunday

The “strongest storm we’ve seen all winter” is expected to bring up to four inches of rain to parts of the Los Angeles Basin and up to 1 1/2 feet of snow to local mountains Sunday night and Monday morning, a forecaster said Friday.

“We haven’t seen anything like this in quite a while,” said Rob Kaczmarek, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc. “There could be some periods of real heavy-duty rain.”

The National Weather Service said a storm system beginning to organize in the Gulf of Alaska on Friday afternoon is expected to swoop south along the coast today, intensifying as it heads toward Los Angeles. The leading edge should reach Southern California late Sunday afternoon.

Kaczmarek said up to two inches of rain will fall at the Los Angeles Civic Center, with about twice that much in communities along the foothills of the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains. He said arctic air aloft will chill the storm as it advances inland, with snow levels dropping as low as 1,500 feet in some areas.