Oddly Early Winter Storm Snarls California, And Additional Rough, Wet Weather Hits Other Parts Of U.S. Southwest

Workers try to clear storm drains in San Francisco
Monday as cars splash through the deep puddles.
An oddly early, strong storm is hitting
Californian. Photo from the San Fransisco 
Chronicle, via Facebook.

 California is being hit today by the kind of storm they usually have to wait until January or February to see. 

The storm features locally heavy rains, the threat of debris flows and mudslides, heavy snow in the mountains and even a low but still real chance of a brief tornado in the Los Angeles basin. 

This type of storm hits California fairly regularly in the dead of winter, but they almost never happen this early in the season. 

The biggest threat from this storm is for people who live near and below the sites of those giant, deadly wildfires that hit the L.A. area last January. 

The City of Los Angeles issued evacuation warnings for homes near the fire burn areas in Pacific Palisades and Malibu, KTLA tells us. 

People who live near the site of a big January fire in and around Altadena were also told to be on the alert to possible evacuations. Same was true near other burn scars in Orange County. 

Valleys in southern California can expect an inch of rain, give or take, which is wildly big for October. The mountains and foothills can expect two to four inches. 

Normal rainfall for the entire month of October in Los Angeles is about a half inch. 

The biggest problem is that the rain in southern California should come in a relatively brief time, with most of it falling within four to six hours. Such downpours can really move rocks and dirt in areas where vegetation was destroyed by wildfires. 

As of 5:30 a.m local time, a gusty thunderstorm with downpours and gusts to 55 mph was blustering through the Los Angeles basin. Very odd for what is normally a dry time of year. 

Further north, the first snows of the season have started falling in the notoriously snowy Sierra Nevada mountains. 

By midwinter standards, this storm isn't huge. But for October, it's impressive. Snow levels were forecast to fall to 5,000 feet above sea level today. Interstate 80 through Donner Pass should have slushy snow and traffic delays along it today. Higher up, some ski resorts, though not open yet, can expect maybe a foot of snow. So I imagine some renegade skiers and riders will be up there doing their thing.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, torrential rains flooded roads and drowned cars in many areas. Several days, mostly Ubers and Lyfts leaving the airport, got trapped in flash flooding Monday night, ABC7 News in San Francisco reported. 

San Francisco on average receives 0.79 inches of rain during the entire month of October. More than that fell in just one day Monday, as the city received 0.87 inches, at least as measured at the airport. 

The oddly early preview of the California rainy season might or might not be good news for the fall and early winter wildfire season.

Strong, dry Santa Ana winds propel the ferocious wildfires in southern California. The worst of them hit from about now through mid December. (Last year, the lack of rain and the Santa Anas kept going well into January, hence the deadly mega fires in the L.A area).

Initially, everything will be damp, so the wildfire risk will be low. But the rain will inspire new plant growth - grass, weeds, that kind of thing. 

By this time of year, northern California is close enough to the normal storm track so that wildfire season is probably over up there. 

But in southern California, that new growth could dry out and become tinder for fires later this fall and early winter.  Southern California is not out of the woods for wildfires just yet. 

That's true even though the weird October rains in California might not be over. Another storm, smaller and weaker than the one they're getting now, could come through next Monday with a little more rain. After that, it seems California will revert back to its normal dry, sunny late October weather.

SOUTHWEST STORMS 

An intense microburst caused a lot of damage in
Tempe, Arizona Monday. It was part of a stormy
pattern in the normally dry southwest U.s. 

It's been a strangely stormy autumn in the Southwest this year, thanks in part to the remnants of Hurricane Priscilla, which originated off the west coast of Mexico. The storm remnants became Priscilla, the (very wet) queen of the desert.   

In Tempe, Arizona, an intense thunderstorm microburst Monday packing winds of at least 70 mph tore roofs off apartment buildings, mobile homes and businesses, displacing at least 130 people. Parts of warehouses collapsed, semi-trucks overturned, and power lines collapsed in the storm. Luckily, there were no serious injuries. 

Another microburst Sunday in Tucson, Arizona damaged several properties, blew over trees and saguaro cactus and caused flooding. The city received 1.2 inches of rain, the biggest storm in almost a year. 

On Sunday, flash floods damaged several homes in Mesa, Arizona and closed roads. 

The bad weather extended into New Mexico and Colorado, causing damaging flash floods in both states. 

In normally arid southwest Colorado, flash floods wrecked about 100 homes, prompted nearly a dozen high water rescues and blocked roads. As much as five inches of rain fell in that part of Colorado. Flooding also hit around Salt Lake City, Utah.