Weekend rain on the way for fire-ravaged Southern California

AccuWeather

Some good news is finally in store for Southern California, with beneficial rain and snow forecasted for this weekend.

Transcript

00:00Well, as wildfires continue to burn in Southern California, much-needed rain is

00:04finally on the way. To break down the details, we're joined now by AccuWeather

00:08California expert Ken Clark. Good evening, Ken. Good evening. Let's start off by

00:15giving just kind of an overview about the fires that are burning right now.

00:18We're down to kind of two that we're watching most closely. The Hughes Fire

00:23and the Border Fire. The Border Fire is the least contained of everybody right

00:26now at about 10%. That may be a little bit low at this point, but that's the

00:31latest update we have. The Border Fire is burning in an area that

00:35doesn't have very much structures around it. Just one thing that's critical is

00:40some communication equipment down in that area. But with the weather

00:44conditions improving, we have very little wind today, this afternoon. We have

00:49temperatures are starting to come down. And with the weekend coming up and how

00:53the weather is looking, they should be able to get that pretty well under

00:56control. Yeah, and at this point, the winds are going to stay kind of a

01:00non-issue as we head into the weekend. That's true. They will be an issue at

01:06all. Light winds, if they're anything, they're gonna be onshore. The big thing

01:10is the humidity is gonna come way up, and we do expect rain, even mountain

01:14snow. Humidities are still very low right now, don't get me wrong. Single

01:18digits still in the inland areas all across Southern California. But that's

01:22gonna come up very quickly during the day tomorrow. Yeah, let's talk about the

01:26rain. At this point, really, any rain would be helpful. But when we talk

01:30about the rain totals that we're talking about, how much of a difference

01:33is this going to make? It's gonna make a pretty good difference. I mean, we're

01:37expecting, especially from L. A. On southward, anywhere between a half to an

01:41inch of rain, and it's gonna come over a fairly lengthy time period from

01:46Saturday night through the day on Monday. So it's not gonna come all at

01:49once. It's gonna come rather lightly, although there can be a few heavier

01:54downpours, and that's what we're concerned about, especially Sunday

01:57afternoon and again on Monday. Things getting more what we call convective,

02:01and there could be some individual showers, maybe a thunderstorm that could

02:05have a hard downpour. And in the burn areas, that could be a problem. So

02:08people in the burn areas need to be very cognizant of that and be prepared

02:13in case there are debris flows that happen. But for the most part, this rain

02:17is gonna be very, very beneficial. We're expecting that much rain. It's

02:21gonna really moisten things up quite a bit. And it also looks like once the

02:26storm finally leaves, that will take until sometime on Tuesday or Wednesday

02:29that we aren't anticipating right now any important Santa Ana wind events.

02:34And it can. Let's talk a little bit more about some of the potential hazards

02:38that we have going on with this. The potential, you know, debris flows, mud

02:42slides at what kind of rain totals. Does that become a concern? Or what kind

02:45of conditions does that become more of a concern? It's not the totals that are

02:51concerning is how quickly the rain comes down. So a quarter inch to a half

02:56an inch of rain over an extended period of time isn't a problem. You get a

03:00quarter of inch of rain in an hour. That could be a problem with those burn

03:04areas where even a half an inch of rain in an hour or two. So that's what we

03:08have to be concerned about. As we get into Sunday afternoon into Monday, is

03:13any place it gets hard downpour and we have over the fire areas, we could have

03:17some debris flows triggered because of that. So again, it's not the amount of

03:22rain that falls over time. It's the amount of rain that falls over a short

03:26period of time. And quickly, let's just last talk about the snow because the

03:31rain is kind of the highlight here. But we're gonna see some mountain snow as

03:33well. Yeah, we will. And we haven't had very much stone. The mountains and ski

03:38areas in the mountains have been really hurting for natural snow this winter.

03:41But we are expecting maybe a foot or more snow in the ski areas of right

03:47wood and in the Big Bear area over the weekend, especially Sunday and Monday.

03:52Snow levels down to at least 5000 ft, maybe down as low as 4000 ft. At times,

03:57snow levels looking a little higher than we thought yesterday, but still

04:01important snow coming to the mountains. And that will also help, of course, the

04:05fire conditions there. Yeah, AccuWeather California expert Ken Clark. Thanks so

04:09much for joining us once again.

04:11Have a good weekend, all. You too.

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