Rain And Foggy Christmas Eve In Store For SoCal

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA — It won't be a white Christmas in Southern California, but it might be a wet one. And Santa will definitely need Rudolph's red nose thanks to dense fog expected to blanket the region on Christmas Eve.

A series of atmospheric storms expected to pummel Northern California will start to make their way south, bringing the potential for light rain on Christmas Eve across the Southland. Santa and holiday travelers are likely to encounter dense fog and drizzle.

The rain will likely be enough to make the roads slick for holiday travel, but not enough to affect the dry conditions that have extended Southern California's wildfire season into December, according to the National Weather Service.

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"We are going to be tied for second-driest start to the water year," said National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Wofford. "We have had very little rain going through last May."

The water-year starts Oct. 1.

The next chance of rain is expected to move south into the Los Angeles area on Tuesday after 10 a.m., with light drizzle expected across the Inland Empire, Riverside County and Orange County Tuesday evening.

"It's very little — in the LA area probably about less than a tenth of an inch (of rain) or a little more Tuesday," said Wofford.

The local mountains aren't expected to get any snow over the Christmas holiday.

By Christmas Day, the sun is expected to return with dry, cool conditions and highs in the low 60s across much of the Southland. That is a cool change from the record-setting heat that the Santa Ana winds ushered in earlier this week.

On Thursday, record highs were set in Big Bear at 67 degrees, Palm Springs at 85 degrees, and Ramona at 82 degrees, according to the weather service.

A second atmospheric river-fueled storm is waiting in the wings to hit Northern California again, but it's unclear if Southern California will see any rain from that storm.

"There are not any good signals," said Wofford. "Aside from that Tuesday night, it's pretty bare in terms of rain."

A high pressure system has been parked over Southern California for quite a while, and it's been steering storms to the north, Wofford added.

"We've still got January, February and March," he added. "January and February tend to be our most productive months."

Though the storms aren't bringing much rain to Southern California, they are affecting the surf. The National Weather Service issued a surf advisory for much of the Southland on Sunday. San Diego County can expect sets from 7 to 10 feet high while Orange County can expect sets between 4 and 6 feet with dangerous rip currents, the weather service warned.