Strong winds hit Southern California overnight, clearing the way for much drier and colder weather for the rest of the week.
Wind gusts overnight in the Sherman Oaks area reached between 45 and 55 mph, according to meteorologist Ariel Cohen with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.
Strong gusts toppled a large tree in Sherman Oaks overnight, according to news station KTLA. The tree narrowly avoided crashing into several parked cars and a home in the 4700 block of Noble Avenue. The tree downed some power lines and disrupted service to hundreds of homes in the area, the news station reports. As of Thursday morning, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s outage map reports that more than 1,000 customers were without power in the general area and a repair crew responded to the incident.
The forecast for the rest of the week will be “cold, dry and windy,” Cohen said. People should be “prepared for the possibility of damaging winds” heading into the weekend, Cohen added.
There is a small chance that scattered rain, resulting from the end of a storm moving across the Great Plains, will reach Los Angeles County on Saturday, with snow levels forecast to fall to around 3,000 feet by Sunday morning, according to the forecast. .
Wind advisories will be in place for most of the region, including the eastern and central mountains of Los Angeles County, the Santa Monica Mountains, the Santa Clarita Valley and the San Fernando Valley, along with eastern Los Angeles County. Fortune. The advisory will extend to the Malibu area and the Santa Ynez Mountains, the National Weather Service said.
The Sycamore Canyon station in the mountains of Ventura County recorded wind speeds of up to 88 mph overnight, according to the National Weather Service. In lower-lying metropolitan areas, wind gusts are expected to reach 10 to 20 mph, Cohen said.
This wind flow is forecast to persist through Friday night, but will gradually relax Thursday night and some of the advisories will also expire around that time.
Farther from Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, the eastern Santa Ynez Range and the mountains of Ventura County are expected to receive northwest to north winds with gusts up to 60 mph, according to the forecast. Winds are expected to increase in the afternoon and a high wind warning will be in effect for the region until after midnight.
Temperatures will reach the 60s in most of Los Angeles County, but will remain in the 40s and 50s in the Antelope Valley, according to the National Weather Service. Mountain communities can expect the mercury to drop to between 30 and 40 degrees. The lowest temperatures are all below average for most of the region.
Some lingering rain fell over the mountains of Ventura County and northwestern Los Angeles County on Thursday morning, but has since eased, the National Weather Service said, while snow levels fell to the 3,500 to 4,000 range. , which caused between 1 and 2 inches of snow. snow in the mountains.
According to the National Weather Service, cold conditions and traces of snow on the ground open the possibility of icy conditions on mountain roads.
