SoCal Rainfall Reaches 30 Inches; LA Sets Rainfall Records (2024)

Weather

California's storm death toll reached at least 20 during this weekend's storm, which drenched Southern California for a second weekend.

Posted Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 12:20 pm PT

This rainy season has been unusually heavy for all of Los Angeles County, with seasonal totals reaching between 11 and nearly 17 inches in Los Angeles and some areas hitting more than 20 inches of rain for the season. Since just October, areas in the Angeles National Forest have seen around 30 inches of rain.

Los Angeles has already exceeded its average rainfall for January and December. The downtown area has received a cumulative 11.01 inches since the beginning of December, which is 5 inches more than usual. In January alone, the city had doubled its monthly average rain total by Saturday.

The rainfall over the weekend was record-breaking for Los Angeles in a number of places, including downtown Los Angeles, LAX and the Long Beach airport area, the Los Angeles Times reported. Last weekend's storm dropped more than two inches of rain nearly everywhere in Los Angeles and up to 5.57 inches of rain in the mountains.

Relentless storms have battered California from the day after Christmas through Monday, killing at least 20 people and causing billions of dollars worth of destruction to public and private property, damage that in some cases will take months or years to repair.

Tallying the damage will take time, but the number of homes and other structures that will be red-tagged as uninhabitable could be in the "low thousands," said Brian Ferguson, spokesperson for the Governor's Office of Emergency Services.

In Los Angeles, a tree fell down in Woodland Hills damaging over a dozen cars, KTLA reported. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Friday declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles to aid storm damage repair efforts.

Residents in neighboring Ventura County were evacuated via helicopter after the area saw 17 inches of rainfall over just one week, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Much like its SoCal neighbors, Orange County saw a number of road closures due to high flood risk over the weekend. A woman in Laguna Hills was rescued Saturday after hanging onto a tree in a creek with fast-moving water. Orange County saw higher rainfall numbers during this storm than its Los Angeles County and Ventura neighbors, according to KTLA.

The first storm drenched Southern California and damaged a number of roads, piers, and made beaches completely untenable. Most of Los Angeles County saw between 1-6 inches of rain over the last seven days, with some areas such as Topanga and Sepulveda Canyons, seeing nearly 8 inches of rain.

The intensity of both storms left many wondering whether California's ongoing drought could have improved in recent weeks. The U.S. Drought Monitor’s weekly update released last week showed that “extreme” drought has been virtually eliminated a week after the worst category — “exceptional” — was washed off the map. Two weeks ago extreme drought covered 35% of California.

The Drought Monitor characterized the improvement as a significant reduction in drought intensity but cautioned that large parts of the state have moisture deficits that have been entrenched for two or three years.

Most of the state is now in the “severe” or “moderate” categories of drought, with small areas in the far northwest and far southeast in a status described as “abnormally dry,” which is the lowest level.

Locally, some reservoirs have seen significant rises in water levels but there are still significant deficits to overcome.