Summer heat will return after brief thunderstorms
Rising temperatures are forecast following a monsoonal rain pattern
Stormy weather that brought spurts of rain to the region, and even some scattered thunder, surprised parts of Southern California early Monday. But residents shouldn’t count on relief from the heat lasting all that long.
Forecasters with the National Weather Service said they expect higher temperatures to return as soon as today.
“There will be some warming tomorrow with some areas up to 5 degrees above normal through mid-week,” Curt Kaplan, a meteorologist in the Los Angeles National Weather Service office, wrote in the station’s forecast note for Monday.
The warming trend will be the result of air currents from the north pushing cooling clouds and fog out of the region. That will mean mostly sunny skies and higher temperatures today and Wednesday, forecasters said.
“By sunset, storms should be finishing up,” wrote Miguel Miller of the San Diego National Weather Service office. “The upper low … responsible for all this activity will rotate northward [Monday and today], sweeping away much of the moisture. There is only a small chance of thunderstorms in the mountains and high desert Tuesday afternoon.”
Early Monday, temperatures were cool around the region due to the rain. Several areas of central Los Angeles County, as well as parts of Orange County and the Inland Empire, saw brief periods of rain.
The Ontario area got nearly a half-inch from Saturday into Sunday morning, one of the strongest downpours in the region, according to the National Weather Service. Fullerton and downtown L.A. got a little more than one-tenth of an inch. Most other areas saw no rain at all.
Forecasters said the rain was part of a monsoonal weather pattern that typically emerges in Southern California in July through September, though the sudden precipitation was stronger than usual for the middle of the summer.
Miller said the weather Sunday and Monday resembled a typical June gloom.
“The marine layer thinks it’s June,” he wrote.
“Most of the coast, including the valleys in San Diego County, have yet to see the sun today. The wetting rain of this morning put a literal damper on the sun’s ability to evaporate the low clouds today.”
The rain was strong enough that the National Weather Service issued flash-flood watches for much of Southern California. A large swath of L.A. County, except for the coasts, was placed under a flash flood watch, as was most of Riverside and San Bernardino counties.