Rain, snow coming to Southern California next week

A storm reminiscent of last month’s weather in Southern California will bring a few days of rain with snow in the mountains as early as Sunday afternoon, National Weather Service officials said this week.

Light rain could start by Sunday afternoon in Orange County and the Inland Empire, with heavier precipitation expected Monday and Tuesday, said Stefanie Sullivan, a meteorologist with the NWS San Diego office. Snow levels are expected to be as low as 5,500 to 6,000 feet elevation for most of the storm, with up to a couple of feet of snow above 6,500 feet, she said.

“They could see some pretty significant snowfall up in the San Bernardino Mountains, spread out over a four-day period,” Sullivan said.

Orange County and the Inland Empire could see up to 2 inches of rain for the same period, with possibly some light rain continuing to Wednesday, she said.

In the greater Los Angeles area, at least a half-inch to an inch of rain is expected, with also some snow in the San Gabriel Mountains, said Eric Boldt, a meteorologist with the NWS Oxnard office.

The precipitation will hopefully help make up for the region’s mostly dry winter season, which begins in October.

“We are just above normal, especially for the downtown Los Angeles area,” Boldt said of precipitation levels. “We’ve had a really dry January and February, but we did makeup quite a bit of that last month because we were a few inches above normal in March.”

Van Nuys was slightly above average year-to-date rainfall, with Hemet about 32% above average. Ontario, Riverside and Santa Ana were all below-average rainfall, with Pasadena the significantly below average by 29%, or about five inches of rain.

The year-to-date totals for Long Beach rainfall were average, with about 11 inches of rain, including March.

Typically in April, the greater Los Angeles area will see about an inch to an inch-and-a-half of rain for the whole month, Boldt said, so next week will be a “jump start.”

“This probably won’t catch us up completely with this storm,” Sullivan said of Orange and Riverside counties, “but at least we’ll be a lot closer.”