Los Angeles braces for gusty Santa Ana winds, followed by rain
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- Santa Ana winds expected Friday will bring 20- to 40-mph winds, gusting to 50 mph in mountain areas.
- Light rain is possible Monday but more likely to arrive Tuesday or Wednesday.
After a couple days of dry and warmer weather, Los Angeles could get wind gusts this week, followed by light rain next week.
It’s possible the rain could reach the area Monday, but it’s most likely to hit Tuesday or Wednesday, said Mike Wofford, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. And it probably won’t be much rainfall — maybe a quarter-inch to a half-inch, he said. No significant impacts are expected, he said.
When it comes to the rest of this week, conditions are expected to warm Friday and Saturday in Los Angeles, with temperatures in the 70s, reaching into the 80s in some valley areas. Saturday should be the warmest day and will be followed by a steady cooling trend, Wofford said.
The warming will be prompted by Santa Ana winds that are expected to blow in Friday, with speeds of 20 to 40 mph, gusting up to 50 mph in higher mountain areas, Wofford said. Although autumn is prime Santa Ana season, it’s not unusual for the area to also get the winds in the spring during the transition from cooler to warmer weather, he said.
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The weather service expects to issue wind advisories Friday, but forecasters aren’t concerned about a wildfire risk because plants and soils are still fairly moist, Wofford said.
The region was soaked this weekend by a storm that dropped a quarter-inch to an inch of rain.
In Indio, where many Angelenos will head for the second weekend of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, temperatures are expected to warm from the mid-80s Friday to the low- to mid-90s Sunday, said Philip Gonsalves, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego.
Conditions will be a bit breezy, with winds gusting to about 20 mph at times, but not strong enough to produce dust storms like those that disrupted the festival’s first weekend, he said.
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