The latest atmospheric river megastorm inundating Southern California with precipitation and high winds — prompting evacuations from mudslides and causing widespread road flooding — brought eye-popping rain totals by Monday morning.
Rainfall topped 10 inches in some areas of Los Angeles County in two days, easily surpassing the average amount recorded for the entire month of February, according to the National Weather Service.
“And February is our wettest month,” said Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. He noted this storm is “significant.”
As of 8 a.m. Monday, downtown Los Angeles had recorded 5.62 inches of rain over the previous 24 hours. The February average is 3.80 inches.
Historical records won’t be confirmed until the storm passes, and there are still multiple days of rain forecast. But Kittell said that Sunday had already become the region’s 10th-wettest calendar day since record keeping began in 1877. The two-day rainfall tally is expected to break the top five in history, he said, pointing out that the heaviest rain fell late Sunday and early Monday.
And there’s still more rain to come, with another 1.5 to 3 inches expected across the L.A. Basin. Higher elevations — which already had recorded the highest rain tallies — could see 3 to 6 more inches, Kittell said.
“It’s pretty relentless; nothing of the intensity we saw last night, but the rains really are not letting up until, possibly, Thursday,” Kittelll said. “But it should be generally light in nature. The one caveat is we do have a chance of thunderstorms, so if we do get a thunderstorm, we could get a brief, heavy downpour.”
Here are the highest rain tallies for select cities across Southern California as of 8 a.m. Monday. The totals include rain that began late Saturday, according to the National Weather Service.
Los Angeles County
- Santa Monica Mountains, at the Topanga fire station: 10.67 inches
- Bel-Air: 10.46 inches
- Sepulveda Pass, near the Skirball Cultural Center: 10.28 inches
- Santa Monica Municipal Airport: 5.58 inches
- Brentwood: 9.90 inches
- Inglewood: 4.96 inches
- Los Angeles International Airport: 3.27 inches
- Downtown Los Angeles: 5.95 inches
- Woodland Hills: 6.73 inches
- Malibu Canyon: 8.06 inches
- Van Nuys Airport: 6.04 inches
- Eagle Rock Reservoir: 4.05 inches
- Los Angeles Valley College: 7.41 inches
- San Gabriel Dam: 6.26 inches
- Harbor City: 4.83 inches
- Pomona: 5.73 inches
Areas with higher elevation saw greater totals, Kittell said, as the hills and mountains act as a ramp to push air up and squeeze out the storm’s moisture.
Areas along the coast have recorded some of the lowest totals, with 2.78 inches reported at Long Beach’s airport, 2.55 inches in Manhattan Beach and 2.59 in Rancho Palos Verdes.
Santa Barbara and Ventura counties:
- Matilija Canyon near Ojai: 8.52 inches
- Ojai: 4.38 inches
- Oxnard: 1.85 inches
- Thousand Oaks: 3.58 inches
- Lake Casitas: 4.93 inches
- Montecito: 5.04 inches
- Carpinteria: 4.2 inches
- Santa Barbara: 4.39 inches
Across much of San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties, rain tallies remained generally below 3 inches Monday morning, but those regions are expecting the worst of the rainfall throughout the day Monday and into Tuesday. San Diego County is not forecast to see heavy rain until Monday evening into Tuesday, though predictions there have been more moderate.
Grace Toohey
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