LA gets most Christmas rain since 1971 and another storm is coming for New Year’s Day
As a record-breaking Christmas storm wraps up across Southern California, sunny skies are in store for the weekend before rain returns on New Year’s Day.
The storm prompted the wettest Christmas Eve-Christmas Day recorded for downtown Los Angeles in 54 years, the National Weather Service said, with the area catching 2.79 inches.
Other Los Angeles spots actually broke records, with the wettest two-day totals for the holiday: Woodland Hills collected 4.64 inches, while near UCLA 3.10 inches fell.
And consider this: January through March are usually the wettest months for Southern California.
In fact, the region has already collected more than half of what is typical for the year that started on Oct. 1.
Downtown L.A. is even way ahead of that — having already collected 76% of its usual rainfall for the year.
“That’s quite impressive, actually,” said Joe Sirard, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Across California, water reservoirs are benefiting from the current storm.
“All the large reservoirs, the levels are above the historical average for Dec. 25,” he said.
Moving into the weekend, the region should see sunshine.
“Pleasantly warm, I would say,” Sirard figured.
Next week is expected to start off windy: A cool, dry offshore flow is forecasted to bring some strong Santa Ana winds, 40 mph to 50 mph in some stretches — up to 60 mph in other areas Sunday night and into Monday morning.
“What’s going to happen with these winds, one of the concerns we have, is that since the ground is so saturated, it will take considerably less wind to knock down trees,” Sirard said.
With the storm leaving the ground waterlogged, in addition to trees falling much more easily, there is the risk of power outages and driving hazards, he noted.
On New Year’s Day, rain is expected to return to Southern California — though not with the ferocity of the storm that just hit.
The National Weather Service says New Year’s Eve might even get some precipitation. Jan. 2 might get some rain, too — before another dry weekend.
Below are the spots that collected the most rain for each county over three days, ending at 6 a.m. Friday, Dec. 26, for L.A. County and at noon for the other counties:
Los Angeles County
- Chilao South, 11.6 inches
- Warm Springs Camp, 11.3 inches
- Cogswell Dam, 11.1 inches
- Crystal Lake, 10.7 inches
- Warm Springs 9.9 inches
San Bernardino County
- Middle Fork Lytle Creek, 14 inches
- San Sevaine, 10.8 inches
- Wrightwood, 10.5 inches
- Lytle Creek, 9.7 inches
- Bernina Drive, 9.4 inches
Orange County
- Upper Silverado Canyon, 4.8 inches
- Upper Harding Canyon, 3.8 inches
- Orange County Reservoir, 3.3 inches
- Fullerton Creek, 3.3 inches
Riverside County
- Mount San Jacinto, 3 inches
- Idyllwild, 2.8 inches
- Temescal FS Guard Station, 2.7 inches
- Live Oak Canyon, 1.9 inches
- Prado Dam, 1.8 inches