An “extremely dangerous situation” was unfolding in the Hollywood Hills area and around the Santa Monica Mountains Monday, as a powerful, slow-moving storm triggered mud flows and debris flows that damaged some homes and forced residents to evacuate.
Damage reports piled up early Monday as the storm system steadily pummeled Southern California, and downtown L.A. broke a 97-year-old rainfall record.
On Sunday, downtown had seen 4.1 inches of rain, which broke the record for the calendar day set on Feb. 4, 1927, when 2.55 inches of rain was recorded. Sunday was the third wettest February day on record and tied for the 10th wettest day for any time of year since record keeping began in 1877, the National Weather Service said . (The wettest day ever was March 2, 1938, which brought 5.88 inches of rain.)
But the rain is expected to continue though Monday and into Tuesday, heightening the danger across Southern California.
“The main plume of moisture and organized rain has stalled over Los Angeles and Orange counties, going into Riverside County,” Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist with the NWS in Oxnard, said Monday. “All of our projections are showing it being there for the better part of the day, and maybe even spreading to the north — to Ventura and Santa Barbara counties — by the afternoon.”