After a week of heavy rain during the holiday festivities, the atmospheric river is finally letting up going into the weekend.
Leftovers may be the theme this week, as “leftover” showers are what’s in store for the rest of Friday as the storm tapers off.
“We’re going to have some leftover showers for today, maybe an exiting thunderstorm. It looks like we might see another quarter inch of rain or less, maybe local amounts up to half an inch additional. Once we get past this afternoon, things should start to dry out, maybe a few leftover showers this evening, then later tonight and tomorrow, it’ll be drying out completely,” said Joe Sirard, meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Dry weather is expected for the rest of the weekend until potential showers may start again on New Year’s Day. However, while the climate may be drier, Santa Ana winds are expected to pick up, which could cause an influx of downed trees.
“We could get some strong Santa Ana winds on Sunday night and Monday morning. We have another issue popping up now, which is that if we get strong enough Santa Ana winds, we could have some trees downed a little bit easier due to the saturated grounds. That’s our next concern,” Sirard said. “Winds should be benign from Sunday night to Monday morning. There’s a chance that we could see gusts up to 60 miles an hour. We may be prompted to put out a high wind warning, but right now we do anticipate we’ll have wind advisories.”
As of Friday afternoon, a Flood Watch is in effect until 6 p.m., according to Sirard. Since Tuesday, the amount of inches accumulated in the Santa Clarita Valley on average is 8.4 at the time of this story’s publication.
“People should keep an eye on things this afternoon. If you get some heavier rain in your area, we could still see more flooding issues, so folks just need to be aware of that,” Sirard said.
