Storms Lining Up to March Through O.C. on Weekend

A Christmas crowd of a different kind is set to invade Orange County, but instead of toting wrapped presents, they’re bringing buckets of rain.

Lined up off the coast of California and marching in for the weekend, a string of winter storms will bring cool temperatures and a steady dose of rain to Southern California. In Orange County, the showers were expected to hit by early this morning and again late Saturday night.

“They’re like shoppers standing in line to get into a store,” according to John Erdman, a meteorologist at WeatherData, which provides forecasts for The Times. “It’s like a parade of storms out there. We have two right now and we expect to see more.”

The first of the storms hit the central and northern areas of the state on Thursday, the same areas where a second wet weather system is expected to roll in during the weekend. This second system may hit late Saturday or early Sunday and last through Monday.

Orange County temperatures will sag with the rain, with the highs in the low to mid-60s, forecasters said. Far worse conditions are expected in the Pacific Northwest, where snow and freezing rain arrived Thursday to plague holiday travelers.

The National Weather Service issued a warning that more than 10 inches of rain could soak some areas of Northern and Central California by Monday morning, flooding rivers and creating dangerous road conditions.

The Southland, on the periphery of those storms, can expect intermittent showers and breezy, cool days, but will be spared the gale winds and torrents of rain that will affect neighbors to the north, Erdman said.

But more intense rain and its hazards--such as mudslides--may visit Orange County and surrounding counties if more storms join the throng of seasonal weather systems, Erdman said.

“I don’t want to push the panic button, but we may see more severe conditions later in the week if they keep rolling in one after the other,” Erdman said. “In that situation, there’s no place for the water to run off to, and you get trouble.”

This weekend’s storm “is looking to be a big one,” National Weather Service forecaster Bob Diaz said.

Originating near the Hawaiian islands, the storms will pile several more feet of snow on the higher elevations of the Sierra, still buried under last weekend’s 8-foot snowfall, in which two people died.

And the storms will add to rainfall totals already well above average in many parts of California.

The weather system that rolled into the northwest portion of Santa Barbara County late Thursday afternoon was expected to generate showers in Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego counties by this morning. Rainfall was expected to be in the range of half an inch to an inch in coastal areas, and perhaps three times that in the mountain locations.

Area snow levels hit 7,000 feet late Thursday, but were expected to drop down to about 6,500 feet range by Friday afternoon. Big Bear can expect some dusting, and snow will likely cap the tallest mountains in Los Angeles County.

On the coast, 4- to 5-foot waves are expected in the area, with western swells hitting 8 feet, Erdman said.

“The surf will not be that rough because there’s not a lot of wind expected to accompany the rain,” Erdman said. “We’re not going to see the gale force winds we’ve seen from storms this size in the past, and that’s because most of the storm’s energy is staying in the central and northern parts of the state.”