Weather Alert Continues for Cooler, Wetter, Windier Weather through Thursday Night

Our cooler, windier weather with mountain snow continues through today before tapering off Friday.
Our shower chances increase this afternoon and overnight--especially to the south of us around San Diego County and many of our mountain communities.

This trough of low pressure has been stalling to our west and remaining almost stationary over the mountains the past few hours...finally seeing some showers locally in the Coachella Valley after around 8pm.

Here's at rainfall totals as of 5pm:

Locally, winds are our biggest impacts today. Gusty winds continue across the entire Coachella Valley with strongest winds across the mountain and desert slopes. As we head into the evening and overnight winds will begin becoming more confined to those areas as this system begins to exit out of the region tomorrow.

There is an Air Quality Alert for windblown dust in effect until 3am Saturday for the Coachella Valley.

Here's a look at current air quality. It's been improving over the last few hours.

Highest rain totals the next 24 hours will be around San Diego County, but I'm not ruling out some limited precipitation accumulation across the valley. Only a couple hundredths of an inch if anything for us on this side, as the mountains are pulling most of the moisture out of this storm track.

A Winter Storm Warning remains in effect for the mountains of Riverside and San Bernadino Counties util 10am tomorrow. Snow levels around 4,000' today drop to about 3,500' tonight and Friday morning.

Generally look for about 4-8" of new snow from Idyllwild to Big Bear by the time this system clears out.
This is a fairly cold system though, so watch for some dropping overnight temps into the teens and 20s in the mountains, low to mid 30s for the high desert and mid to upper 40s around the Coachella Valley tonight.
Things start warming up and quieting down Friday, though we'll still be below seasonal temps.
We'll catch a little bit of a break in the action this weekend as a right of high pressure moves in and builds over the region. That'll lead to warmer and drier conditions for Saturday and Sunday as we return back to the mid 70s to low 80s across the desert and Coachella Valley. Clouds clear more too, so look for significantly more sunshine into the weekend as well.
Come Monday it looks like another system comes knocking on our door, approaching the coastal region to kick off the week. Timing and location are still a bit uncertain, but could lead to cooler conditions and potentially another shot of some wetter, gustier weather…some models suggest this may delay a bit and may not arrive until mid next week. While timing is still up in the air, there is a bit more confidence that this will be a stronger system and potentially our coldest and wettest one we've seen this winter. Regardless of exact timing and track, models are showing more confidence that cooler and wetter weather will be back again next week. I'll be keeping a close eye out as lots of details are still up in the air.