San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
SNOW ALERT ISSUED FOR COUNTY MOUNTAINS; MORE RAIN
Weather service sees wet week for lower elevations
The National Weather Service has issued a winter weather notice for the San Diego County mountains, where 2 to 5 inches of snow could fall between Saturday night and early today and an additional 4 to 8 inches could fall late Monday.
Forecasters say the first system will produce snow above the 5,500-foot level, mostly on the peaks of Mount Laguna and Palomar Mountain. Snow could fall as low as 3,500 feet when the second system moves through, possibly reaching Alpine as well as parts of eastern Interstate 8.
The weather service also is expecting fog between 3,000 and 5,000 feet tonight, making driving extra hazardous.
Today will be the fourth consecutive day that San Diego County has received significant rain. The pattern began on Thursday when an airborne river of moisture from the subtropics slammed the county. It produced rain that lasted into Friday morning.
More fell on Saturday, pushing the three-day rain total at Palomar Observatory to 6.8 inches. That figure could rise by another inch by noon today.
Sporadic rain also is expected on Monday, and there could be sprinkles when UCLA plays North Carolina State in the Holiday Bowl at Petco Park in San Diego on Tuesday. The game will get under way at 5 p.m.
Yet another system is forecast to drop from 0.30 inches to 0.50 inches at the coast and twice as much in the mountains late Wednesday and early Thursday. Sprinkles are possible on
Rainfall totals across the San Diego region
Sample of Saturday’s rainfall, through 2:45 p.m.
Bonsall ................ 0.12 inches Brown Field .......... 0.19 inches Carlsbad .............. 0.13 inches Chula Vista .......... 0.10 inches Elfin Forest ........... 0.15 inches Encinitas .............. 0.19 inches Fallbrook .............. 0.11 inches Fashion Valley ...... 0.21 inches Julian .................. 0.14 inches Kearny Mesa ......... 0.11 inches La Jolla ................ 0.14 inches La Mesa ............... 0.10 inches Lake Wohlford ...... 0.18 inches Lemon Grove ....... 0.10 inches
Friday, which is New Year’s Eve.
Through 2:45 p.m. Saturday, San Diego International Airport had recorded 3.08 inches of precipitation
Miramar Lake ....... 0.10 inches Montgomery Field . 0.11 inches North Island ......... 0.16 inches Oceanside ........... 0.21 inches Palomar Mountain ........................... 0.30 inches Mount Woodson .... 0.19 inches Rainbow ............... 0.17 inches Ramona ............... 0.11 inches San Diego International Airport ................. 0.15 inches San Marcos ......... 0.22 inches San Ysidro ............ 0.19 inches Santee ................. 0.11 inches Valley Center ........ 0.16 inches Vista .................... 0.16 inches
since the rainy season began on Oct. 1. That’s more than a half-inch above average.
San Diego’s daytime high temperature has yet to reach 70 degrees this month, and it doesn’t look like it will break that barrier before New Year’s, says forecaster Casey Oswant. Forecasters say that San Diego will reach 58 today, which is eight degrees below normal.
In other parts of the state, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada was at dangerously low levels after recent weeks of dry weather but the state Department of Water Resources reported on Christmas Eve that the snowpack was between 114 percent and 137 percent of normal across the range with more snow expected.
In the San Bernardino National Forest, crews are working on a $4.2 million emergency project to repair a section of state Route 18 that washed down a hillside late Thursday after heavy rain. The roadway is a major route to Big Bear Lake.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. gary.robbins@sduniontribune.com