A major atmospheric river storm — strong enough to potentially rival some of the extreme storms that have walloped Southern California in recent winters — is barreling toward the coast, raising the specter of damaging landslides and flooding across the region.
This storm, forecast to reach Southern California sometime before Valentine’s Day, is expected to be the strongest of the winter so far, according to the National Weather Service office in Oxnard.
It threatens to drop large amounts of rain — 2 to 4 inches or more along the coast and in valleys, 4 to 8 inches or more in the mountains and foothills — across a swath of the Southland. There’s a 60% chance of rainfall of that magnitude in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, and a 30% chance in Los Angeles and Ventura counties…