LA is hammered as more heavy rain swamps Calif.
Heavy rainfall battered Los Angeles on Monday as four counties in Southern California were placed under a flood watch just two weeks after a winter storm devastated the region with severe flooding and mudslides.
The National Weather Service placed wide swaths of Los Angeles County’s inland coast under a flood watch through Wednesday. On Monday, the western side of the city Los Angeles and the Santa Monica Mountains were under a flash flood warning until 6 p.m. Flood warnings were also issued for the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys and the Eastern Santa Monica mountains.
“The main flood threat is going to be today and tomorrow,” AccuWeather meteorologist Joseph Bauer told USA TODAY on Monday.
The storm could bring up to 5 inches of rain and “damaging” winds of up to 60 mph, the weather service said. Mountainous areas could see several feet of snow and up to 8 inches of rain.
The rainstorm descended on the Central Valley late Sunday and stretched south to soak San Diego, according to AccuWeather. Bauer said Monday’s rain would cover the region northwest of the L.A. basin, and the heaviest rainfall would hit Santa Barbara and Ventura County.
“They’ve already picked up a couple inches around Santa Barbara and even produced some flash flood reports in Santa Barbara itself and into the hills,” Bauer said. The storm would then move south down the coast on Tuesday, centering on the L.A. basin and bringing “concerns for flooding and mudslides” in the area, he said. Metro areas in Los Angeles and San Diego are at risk of “ponding water,” Bauer said.