Storm ensures a wet, chilly weekend

Forecast calls for onefourth to half an inch of precipitation, below normal temperatures.

A chilly spring storm system that moved into Southern California on Saturday is expected to bring onefourth to half an inch of precipitation, more in the mountains, through Sunday.

“The latest storm total is looking to be around onequarter inch up to 1 for mountain areas,” said meteorologist Rose Schoenfeld of the National Weather Service’s Oxnard station.

Snow was forecast for elevations above 6,000 feet, with up to 10 inches falling on the highest peaks and a dusting of up to an inch on the Grapevine through Sunday morning.

Temperatures remained in the high 50s to low 60s across the region Saturday, eight to 15 degrees below normal, and were expected to stay below normal through Monday.

“This weekend, temperatures [will be] struggling to reach 60” degrees, Schoenfeld said.

Wind gusts of 20 mph to 40 mph were forecast to accompany the late-season storm, peaking along the Interstate 5 corridor and in the Antelope Valley.

The latest in a series of soggy weekends is expected to be followed by at least a week of warm and dry weather, starting with above-normal temperatures Tuesday, but it is not necessarily the season’s last.

“For six to 10 days out, we don’t see signals for any storm,” Schoenfeld said. “Beyond that, uncertainty.”

Normal precipitation for April is around 0.7 of an inch..

“If we get one-quarter, we won’t be close,” Schoenfeld said.

Snow was also forecast for the Sierra Nevada, with up to 8 inches expected in the Mammoth Mountain area and up to 12 inches on the higher peaks of the southern Sierra.

Meteorologist Mark Deutschendorf of the weather service’s Reno station said the new snowfall would moderately add to a late-season surge that has pushed the snowpack to a current level of 118% of normal.

“The whole general theme of this winter season is it started well below average, then in February and March a series of storms brought the totals up,” he said. “We were able to rally and catch up and get slightly above normal.”