More Storms Marching Toward Southland

A series of Pacific storms is expected to keep marching through Southern California for the next week or more, bringing substantial rain to the coastal valleys and a thick blanket of snow to the mountains.

“They just keep coming, one right after the other,” said Stacey Johnstone, a meteorologist with WeatherData, Inc. “It took a long time for the rainy season to start, but it’s here now, and it looks like it isn’t going to be over soon.”

Wednesday’s storm made streets slippery, with 138 traffic accidents reported on Los Angeles freeways during the morning commute, about twice the usual number. A small mudslide below a burned hillside in Arcadia engulfed the side of one house, but workers using skip loaders were able to save it.

The National Weather Service said 0.58 of an inch of rain had fallen on downtown Los Angeles by midafternoon Wednesday, raising the total for the season--which runs from July 1 through June 30--to 3.93 inches. That’s still considerably less than half the normal total for the date of 9.6 inches, but Johnstone said a lot more appears to be on the way.

Today should be partly cloudy and dry, she said, but the next storm should bring a few sprinkles to the Los Angeles Basin by Friday night, with showers throughout the area all day Saturday and possibly into Sunday morning.

“We’re probably looking at about an inch of rain in the basin from that one, with an inch and a half to two inches in the foothills,” she said. “The storm is on the cool side, so the snow level should drop to about 4,000 feet, with up to about six inches of new snow at the ski resorts.”

Johnstone said there should be a brief break Sunday night and Monday morning before the arrival of still another storm system, “and that one could be even stronger.”

“There should be at least as much rain and snow from that one, and maybe even more,” she said. “The pattern seems to be holding, so there could be additional storms later in the week.”

Other totals from Wednesday’s storm by nightfall included 1.05 inches in Arcadia and Pasadena, 0.80 of an inch in Glendale, 0.72 in Redondo Beach, 0.68 in Burbank, 0.64 in Montebello, 0.43 in Torrance, 0.29 in Anaheim, 0.27 in Rancho Bernardo, 0.1 in Newport Beach and 0.07 in San Diego.

Whether the continuing series of low-pressure weather systems will raise this winter’s precipitation levels to near normal is still anyone’s guess, but meteorologists are at least cautiously optimistic.

The dry weather during November, December and January--the first half of what usually is the rainiest part of the year--has been blamed in large part on La Nina, an enduring oceanic and meteorological counterpoint to the drenching El Nino of 1997-98. During El Ninos, it’s usually wetter than normal in Southern California; during La Ninas, it’s usually drier.

But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the current La Nina, now almost two years old, is finally showing signs of weakening. By this fall, the agency says, the weather patterns could be getting back to normal.

Yet to be factored into this equation are new satellite data showing that the Pacific Ocean may be undergoing a dramatic climate shift--much longer than El Nino-La Nina cycles--that might lead Southern California into decades of abnormally dry weather.

Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena predict a major impact, while other meteorologists say any such prediction is premature.