Record breaking rainfall yesterday, drying out into the holiday weekend
Santa Barbara saw upwards of 3 inches of rain within the last 24 hours, with some rainfall rates reaching up to an inch per hour. Multiple areas reported record breaking amounts of rain. The Oxnard National Weather service site, the Santa Barbara Airport and the Camarillo Airport all broke daily rainfall records from 1945. Keep in mind this does not account for the 3.18" that fell within an hour at the Oxnard Civic Center late Wednesday night, this is not an official rain record site, so it cannot be claimed as a record. We saw localized flooding on low lying streets and a multiple road closures. The storm system was able to intensify more than anticipated for the day due to the erratic nature of the low intensifying and moving closer to the coast. With the low sitting right off the coast of Point Conception, it was able to tap into an long line of moisture from the Pacific and strong thunderstorms developed over the waters. These storms moved fast, taking aim at the South Coast. With these fast and strong moving storms, the topography of Santa Barbaras mountains and the southwesterly flow of the winds, large cells were able to dump a substantial amount of rain over the south coast, drenching Santa Barbara County. Luckily, for Friday we will see that potent low pressure system moving south and east, bringing more rain to LA County and further south. We may see a few very light showers for the early morning, but likely under a tenth of an inch, if anything makes it to the ground. The sun will come out and will warm temperatures up about 4-8 degrees and it'll be a calm day.
With the recent rainfall and minimal cloud cover expected overnight, we can expect patchy to dense fog to form along the Central Coast Friday night into Saturday morning. High pressure begins to build in, just in time for the holiday weekend. Fog will clear out quickly and sunny skies will warm temperatures up and will help dry us out. Highs will be back up into the upper 60s with most areas not quite making it to 70 degrees. Winds stay calm and flow from the northwest, causing a few clouds to stream overhead.
Christmas eve will be beautiful with mostly sunny skies and mild temperatures. Those calm and pleasant conditions will persist into Christmas day, but if you are traveling for the holidays make sure to keep an eye on your forecast and flights and weather throughout the U.S will be rather unsettled. Tuesday looks similar with a slight increase in clouds and by Thursday of next week we have the potential for another rain storm to impact the Central Coast. Half of the data shows rain and the other half shows dry conditions, so it is likely this forecast will be evolving and changing over the next few days.
