If you like the tropics, you may love Southern California’s weather for the next couple of days.
Warm temperatures and high humidity combined Wednesday for an oppressive, South Seas feeling throughout the Southland, and forecasters said we’ll have more of the same through Friday.
The mercury made it into the 90s in local valleys and the mid-80s in downtown Los Angeles and other inland areas, while the beaches saw temperatures top out at 79.
The National Weather Service predicted a small chance – about 20 percent – of rain and even thunderstorms through the end of the week, and any heavy precipitation could trigger debris flows and flash flooding in areas denuded by earlier wildfires.
A low-pressure system has been moving toward California’s southwestern coast from west of Baja California, “bringing a possibility of showers and thunderstorms to much of the area” through Friday, said a National Weather Service statement. “The thunderstorms will shift eastward to interior Los Angeles County on Friday and end late Friday evening.”
Only a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms threaten valley and coastal areas, but the chances of precipitation will be greater in mountain areas during afternoon and evening hours.
Any thunderstorm will have the potential to unleash heavy downpours because of moisture and atmospheric instability created by a southerly air flow preceding the low-pressure system, the statement said. Thunderstorms would move quickly over the region thanks to a strong southerly flow, but as the flow weakens Thursday, “the flash flood potential will increase over the mountains and desert due to slower moving storms,” it said.
The heavy rainfall generated in such conditions will create “a risk of flash flooding and debris flows in recent burn areas,” it said.
Thursday’s temperatures will be around 5 degrees lower in many communities and fall marginally on Friday.
—City News Service