A slow-moving Pacific storm tapping into an atmospheric river and hammering California with rain and snow has moved into San Diego County. The north county has seen the most rain all day with widespread rainfall of 1 to 2" and local amounts higher including San Onofre which has picked up 4" of rain so far! Click here to see rain totals where you live.
Flood Advisories are in effect across the county which means ponding on the roadways and flooding of low-lying areas is occurring or will soon. Click here to view the details.A Flood Watch has been extended until 6am Wednesday for the entire county, a watch means that more flooding may occur.
The atmospheric river has reached San Diego and the rain will be more widespread and steady the rest of tonight into at least tomorrow morning. Once the atmospheric river passes through by tomorrow mid to late morning rainfall will become more showery and will continue through Wednesday until the center of the storm finally passes through. While it will be more showery and less widespread there will be heavy rain at times and the threat of thunderstorms will continue with heavy downpours and gusty winds through Wednesday morning.
Expect a slow and messy morning commute tomorrow with ponding on the roads, areas of flooding, and creeks and rivers rising. We expect an additional 1 to 4 inches of rain through tomorrow with additional rain Wednesday through Friday, but it won't be as widespread or steady as tonight into tomorrow.
The colder part of the storm moves in Tuesday night into Wednesday and that's when snow levels will drop to 4,500' which means the higher elevations of Mt. Laguna, Palomar Mountain and Lookout Mountain could pick up a few inches of snow for the second half of the week. Julian sits at 4,200' so we will likely just have rain, but it's not out of the question that snow levels could briefly drop bringing some snow to the area.
It will be gusty at times through Wednesday but not as windy as last night and early this morning. Expect westerly gusts up to 25mph for the coast and valleys and up to 45mph in the mountains and deserts.
A weaker storm will move in Thursday into Friday with scattered showers but won't be as impactful as our current storm. Showers may linger into Saturday morning but then we finally dry out with sunshine returning for the rest of the weekend.
We've picked up over half of our average annual rainfall in San Diego with over 6" of rain falling since the water year began on October 1st, nearing in on the almost 8" of rain we had seen by this time last year!
Tuesday's Highs:
Coast: 57-60°
Inland: 53-59°
Mountains: 40-52°
Deserts: 62-64°
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