One of the biggest storms to hit Southern California in years will move ashore Sunday, possibly causing serious flooding from Santa Barbara to San Diego over a two to three day period and snarling traffic on the network of freeways that serve the region’s 24 million people, the National Weather Service said.
The system, which is drawing extra moisture from an atmospheric river flowing this way from near Hawaii, will move into Santa Barbara County on Sunday morning and spread south and east, reaching most of San Diego County by late Monday morning.
Forecasters said Santa Barbara and Los Angeles counties could get 3 to 6 inches of rain by late Tuesday. Northern San Diego County could get 3 to 4 inches Monday and Tuesday, while South County could receive around 2 to 3 inches.
Rainfall will vary greatly across all of these areas, and projected totals can change significantly.
“If the atmospheric river speeds up, we will get less rain,” said Adam Rozer, a weather service forecaster in San Diego. “If it slows down or stalls, we’ll get more. It’s very hard to predict what will happen.”