After about two weeks of extreme heat and now a week or so of lower temperatures, the tail end of the Santa Clarita Valley forecast this weekend will bring rain heading into next week, according to the National Weather Service.
Last week’s forecast prompted a number of warnings from forecasters and public health agencies as temperatures climbed up to 107 degrees in the foothills and other regional hot spots.
The heat wave — in a week when the average temperature already ranges from about 65 to 95 degrees — was caused by “some strong high pressure aloft over the region, as well as a weak on-shore flow,” said Ryan Kittell, meteorologist for the National Weather Service.
The onshore flow usually helps cool things down, he explained, but now that the marine layer has had a chance to re-establish itself, it’s being met by a “large trough” of low-pressure winds coming from the northwest, which is having the opposite cooling effect: Wednesday through Friday, the forecast calls for highs of 86, 85 and 84, respectively.
Those finding the 20-degree turnaround a bit too much will want to hang on to their hats, literally, because on Sunday, there’s a good chance of rain, Kittell added.
He said the rain is more than likely to come from what’s now being called Tropical Storm Marie, which is moving around the Baja Coast toward Southern California.
“How close it gets, and whether or not it actually goes over us remains to be seen,” he said, referring to the limitations of weather radar-based predictions. “Most likely, it’ll stay off the coast. But regardless of which exact path it takes, it will bring more moisture in the area, and it’s giving us right now like a 50/50 shot of actual rain, and really in that Sunday through Tuesday time period.”
He said based on what he sees now, the precipitation level looks to be more than a sprinkle but not enough to cause flooding.
“(The storm) doesn’t even have to make landfall or get all that close to us because the moisture plume is so vast that even just the fringes of it will bring us chances of rain,” he said. “It’s more likely than not that there’s going to be rain sometime in that window. So, just for folks who have outdoor plans for the holiday … have a backup plan in mind in case it does actually rain.”
