Up in the mountains and high desert (not so much down here in the LA Basin and the valleys that are close to the ocean) humidity (monsoonal moisture) plus heat (over 100ºF today) gives rise to thunderstorms. So today to our north, toward Mt Pinos and the Coastal Range (on the left), the Grapevine (center) and the Antelope Valley (on the right), we saw this:
(It’s a good sized image – click on it to see it full sized!)
The big threat for the next few days however is from the south, off of Baja. Tropical Storm Hilary is building off of Cabo San Lucas and is expected to be a full-blown hurricane tomorrow. It’s expected to travel more or less due north off of Baja until it slams into Southern California and Arizona over the weekend.
It’s all still three or four days out so who knows what the weather gods will actually deliver – just based on our luck, we’ll get missed entirely and Las Vegas and Phoenix will get flooded. Still, the current model from NWS Los Angeles says we’ll get somewhere between 2-5 inches of rain, so I’m hopeful.
