Forecasters See Moist Beginning for the New Year

Drippy New Year!

Skies will be cloudy all this week, and a few showers may fall, but forecasters backed away Monday from dire warnings of a saturated start to 1997.

At least in Orange County.

“Looks like you’re just going to be on the very southern fringes of the storm for the next couple of days,” said Curtis Brack, a meteorologist with WeatherData, which provides forecasts for The Times. “Through New Year’s Day, we’re looking for mostly cloudy skies [in Orange County], with a chance of light showers.”

For the most part, he said, any heavy rain is going to stay up in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.

Orange County residents, therefore, can continue watching snow-filled, ice-caked, rain-drenched weather reports from parts north (particularly the Pacific Northwest) with traditional, seasonal smugness.

Temperatures here will stay in the 50s and 60s throughout the first week of the new year, and by the weekend, sunshine is expected to return.

Rose Bowl Parade watchers can breathe easier, too. The gala event might be spritzed, but probably won’t be flooded.

Winds might pick up occasionally in Orange County, but they should be mild and warm, spun off by the Pacific storm, Brack said.

Of all the days, he predicted, Friday looks as though it could be the rainiest.

“There’s a huge shield of clouds covering the eastern Pacific, and that’s going to keep rolling inland all week,” he said.

Clouds mean gray and bleak, but not the cold everyone first feared.

“It probably feels a lot colder than it actually is,” Brack said hopefully, “because there’s no sunshine.”

Nothing an Ohio State sweatshirt or an Arizona State Windbreaker can’t fix.