L.A. weather: On-and-off light rain expected for weekend

The light showers that teased parched Southern California overnight should taper off Friday morning, but more rain could still be in store this weekend, forecasters said.

There may still be some light rain Friday morning -- and then again Sunday into Monday -- but the weather system “looks like a fairly light event again, less than a quarter-inch,” said meteorologist Curt Kaplan with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

Any possibility of rain Friday night is “nothing to really write home about,” he added.

That’s bad news for a region suffering under bone-dry conditions.

Earlier this month, Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state drought emergency, and this week he met with Southern California water leaders to discuss the issue.

“Every day this drought goes on, we’re going to have to tighten the screws on what people are doing,” Brown said before the meeting in Los Angeles.

For the rain year that started July 1, 2013, downtown L.A. has received just 0.97 inches of rain, Kaplan said. The normal average for this time of year is 7.33 inches.

“We’re right in the middle of our rainy season too,” Kaplan said.

About one-third to one-half of an inch of rain fell in the San Gabriel Mountains on Thursday night, but most of Los Angeles County saw less than a tenth of an inch, Kaplan said.

In downtown L.A., there were trace amounts of rain if anything at all, Kaplan said.

According to a list of precipitation totals from the weather service, Morris Dam in the San Gabriel Mountains topped Thursday night’s rainfall totals with 0.75 inches. Tanbark Flats and San Dimas Dam tied for second with 0.59 inches.

Friday’s high temperatures are expected to be in the lower to mid-60s across the coastal regions and valleys. During the night, temperatures are expected to cool to the mid-40s to lower 50s, Kaplan said.

ari.bloomekatz@latimes.com

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