Calling the event “astronomically rare,” weather officials confirmed Wednesday there was a bit of precipitation in the Santa Clarita Valley, and while it wasn’t measurable, it might stick around before it clears out this weekend.
Meteorologist John Dumas of the National Weather Service described the reports as “really widely scattered” to the point that it would have defied the odds to be picked up on one of their sensors, he joked.
“Here and there, there’s a drop that comes down,” Dumas said in a phone interview. “Nothing to say, ‘Boy, look at that rain.’”
Videos shared on social media indicated residents caught the rare late-summer SoCal rain in parts of Saugus particularly, but Dumas confirmed there was no measurable total for the day as of about 3:30 p.m.
Dumas said the precipitation, as well as some mugginess many experienced, could be attributed to the remnants of Tropical Storm Ernesto, which didn’t quite reach hurricane status before it dissipated off the coast of the Baja Peninsula.
However, the remnants of the clouds were “packing a lot of moisture into what is a normally dry August,” he added.
By Saturday, the cloud cover that kept things a bit cooler is expected to move along, Dumas said. The forecast for the weekend calls for highs in the 90s and overnight lows in the mid-60s.
