Heavy rain and snow aren't over yet for California
Extreme meteorologist Dr. Reed Timmer explains why flash flood warnings and winter storm warnings are still in effect through Thursday even if you're seeing blue skies right now.
Transcript
00:00 Flash flood watches are in effect through 6 a.m. tomorrow morning. Winter storm warnings in the mountains above 6000 feet until 8 a.m.
00:07 So there is another round of big-time precipitation coming tonight later on today.
00:11 So don't let the blue skies fool you. There's still a lot more rain, possibly heavy rainfall, thunderstorms moving into southern California later on tonight.
00:19 And in the winter storm warning area above 6000 feet, snowfall totals could even approach 2 feet,
00:25 especially up near the summits above 7000 feet, up above 10,000 feet, definitely over 2 feet of snow.
00:32 But a very impactful snow event for locations like Big Bear, Wrightwood, could easily see over a foot by tomorrow morning of snowfall.
00:39 And this is all as the cold upper-level low is coming in behind the Atmospheric River.
00:43 The Atmospheric River is a long, extended jet on the south side of that upper-level trough.
00:48 And then when the cold coral loft moves overhead, that's when you get instability.
00:52 And that's why we had some showers and thunderstorms through the morning so far this morning.
00:56 And we even had a funnel cloud near the Dana Point area, definitely rapidly rotating.
01:00 But as that cold upper-level low comes in, the instability is going to increase even more tonight.
01:05 And that's going to lead to heavy rainfall. And that's why there is a flash flood watch.
01:09 And that's because the ground is very saturated here across southern California.
01:13 So any new rainfall that happens will immediately be converted to runoff and flash flooding.
01:18 And some of those rainfall totals could approach two to four inches, especially in the higher terrain of the Santa Ana Mountains of southern California.
01:25 So certainly stay safe tonight. Some dangerous travel.
01:28 A last gasp of this multiple-day Atmospheric River event.
01:32 [BLANK_AUDIO]