What began as light rain at the San Diego County coastline overnight spread across the region Wednesday morning — with the heaviest rainfall still to come in the days to follow.
Through Friday, between 1.5 and 2.5 inches of rain are expected to fall at the coast, with 3 to 6 inches in the mountains and up to 7 at Palomar Mountain.
The mid-February storm promised the kind of soaking that has proved rare during this unusually dry winter, and forecasters said it would be “certainly beneficial.”
“We’re expecting it to help significantly with the severe drought we’re in, although it’s not going to pull us out of that drought,” said Kyle Wheeler, a National Weather Service meteorologist. “We would probably need at least one more storm of this magnitude, if not more.”
When the rain intensifies, the heaviest precipitation should fall Thursday through the night, spreading toward the southeast, forecasters say.
But they don’t expect anything unusual for this time of year — certainly nothing like the torrential rains that prompted flooding in January of last year, Wheeler said. The San Diego River was not expected to reach flood stage but would be closely monitored, he added.
Winds will intensify Thursday, too, gusting up to 35 mph in at the coast and in valleys and foothills and up to 70 to 80 mph in the county’s southeastern desert along Interstate 8.
Showers are expected to continue through Friday.
In the mountains, some of the precipitation was falling as snow Wednesday morning, and more snow could fall as the storm leaves Friday, forecasters say. “Palomar and Mount Laguna could get a couple inches,” Wheeler said.
But snow levels were expected to rise Wednesday to 6000 to 6500 feet — about as high as San Diego County elevations get — around noon, and higher by afternoon. They could drop again Friday.
Whether it falls as rain or snow, ample precipitation is expected in some of the region’s mountains. Palomar Mountain had a 70 percent chance of getting at least 2 inches of rain through Wednesday night, NWS forecasters said.
On Thursday, as much as 1 inch of rain could fall per hour on the coastal slopes of the mountains, the weather service said.
The heaviest rainfall is likely to occur Thursday evening, when there will also be a slight chance of thunderstorms, it added.
