Another drought on the horizon? High-pressure ridge over eastern Pacific has kept wet weather at bay
Swaths of Southern California, including downtown Los Angeles, could be heading toward one of the driest combined starts to a year on record if the Golden State doesn’t start getting some rain, the National Weather Service said Thursday.
Though precipitation in November and December provided a solid start to winter across the state, a persistent high-pressure ridge hovering over the eastern Pacific Ocean has kept wet weather at bay for much of January and early February, said David Sweet, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.
“It’s been successful in diverting all of the Pacific storms into the Pacific Northwest up near Seattle,” Sweet said. “Overall for January and February, we’ve been far below normal in terms of rainfall.”
Downtown Los Angeles received 0.32 inches of rain in January. So far in February, typically the wettest month of the year, the area has received just a trace of precipitation. On average, downtown Los Angeles receives 6.92 inches of rain in January and February, according to the weather service.
The total seasonal rainfall so far downtown is also
Two people were killed in what authorities described as “an isolated shooting ” at a Rancho Mirage medical office complex Friday morning.
The shooting was reported at 9:34 a.m. in the 71500 block of Highway 111, Riverside County Sheriff’s Deputy Robyn Flores said.
“There are no outstanding suspects, and there’s no threat to the community,” Flores said.
Authorities said the shooting was “more of an isolated incident” rather than an active shooter situation. However, Flores said she didn’t yet know specifics about the victims or what prompted the deadly encounter.
It was not immediately clear whether the shooting involved a murder-suicide, Flores said.
Ron Costi, a State Farm insurance agent whose office is next door to the medical building, said two people ran to his office about 9:30 a.m., screaming that there had been a shooting.
Costi called 911 and said police arrived within minutes.
Law enforcement remained on the scene for a few hours, Costi said, but did not provide him or two other employees in his office with details.
The insurance agent’s office has been in the area for 40 years, and Costi said he’s never experienced anything like this in the suburban neighborhood.
“It was a big whirlwind,” he said.
Nearby, a woman who worked for the answering service of a doctor’s office said the building had been evacuated because of an emergency and wouldn’t reopen until Monday. Several other businesses in the plaza did not answer their phones.