It Never Rains In California. Until It (Mercifully) Does

Wildfire near Camp Pendleton, California last week.
Rain is finally coming to southern California tonight.
Not much and late, but anything will help. Fire
from Cal Fire, via AP

The weather forecast for the Los Angeles area is lousy, and I'm sure people are ecstatic over it. 

It's supposed to rain there later today through tonight and into tomorrow morning.  

As rain storms go, this isn't a biggie. They'll probably get a half inch to an inch of rain, with locally two inches in the hills. Elevations of about 4,500 or so will get some snow. 

The reason everybody is likely happy there is that the rain will probably at least temporarily end the region's extended fire season. As recently as this past weekend, there was an elevated fire danger in southern California. 

Fire season usually dwindles in November as the first rains of the season creep into southern California. The rain is both late and light this year in California. That was just another bad part of the state's worst-ever fire season. By September, 3.2 million acres had burned, and there were more fires after that. 

A wildfire that burned around Camp Pendleton just over the Christmas holiday forced the evacuation of 7,000 people.

Now, finally, the rain is arriving. This won't solve all of California's problems, as the incoming rain doesn't really reflect a real pattern change. Even so there are some additional chances of rain in southern California as we go into January.

Even with this rain, it might not erase the risk of brush fires in southern California just yet. It'll help, but they're surely praying for a wet January, February and March out there.

Northern California, as always, will be wetter than the south over the next few weeks, but even there, so far we don't have evidence that there will be enough in the immediate future to diminish the state's drought much. 

As of late last week, 95 percent of California was in drought, according to U.S. Drought Monitor. 

Tonight's LA rain is one of the ingredients that will give us here in Vermont some inclement weather for the New Year's weekend.  The prospect of another very warm rain storm has gotten more iffy with new forecasts, so we'll just leave things as the fact we have a good chance of getting some sort of precipitation Thursday and Fridah.