LOS ANGELES (CNS) - Dry weather will prevail in the Southland today and Friday before the advent of a wet and cool weekend, the National Weather Service said.
The weather service forecast partly cloudy skies in L.A. County today along with highs of 77 degrees on Mount Wilson; 79 degrees in Avalon; 81 at LAX; 83 in Palmdale and Lancaster; 86 in Downtown L.A.; 87 in Long Beach and Saugus; 88 in San Gabriel; 89 in Burbank; 91 in Pasadena; and 93 in Woodland Hills.
Friday will see a sharp cooldown -- Woodland Hills will drop 19 degrees -- then fall another 10 degrees amid rain on Saturday and Sunday.
Today's temperatures will be about 10 degrees above normal but Saturday's will be around 15 degrees below the norm, said NWS meteorologist Lisa Phillips from her monitoring station in Oxnard.
She attributed the impending precipitation to a low-pressure system now in the Pacific, between Alaska and Oregon, saying it would not only generate rain, but also high winds and rough seas, perhaps starting tonight.
The NWS said the wet-weather event would generate a quarter to three quarters of an inch of rain in the mountains, along with light snow above 4,000 feet, and between a 10th and a half-inch of rain in the valleys and along the coast.
Sunny skies are forecast in L.A. County Monday, along with the start of a slow warming trend.
In Orange County, partly cloudy skies were forecast along the coast today but sunny skies were expected inland, along with highs of 75 on Santiago Peak; 79 in San Clemente; 80 in Newport Beach; 82 in Laguna Beach; 86 on Ortega Highway at 2,600 feet; 91 at Fremont Canyon; 92 in Irvine; 93 at Trabuco Canyon and in Fullerton; and 94 in Anaheim, Mission Viejo and Yorba Linda. Temperatures will be around 20 degrees lower Friday, then drop around another 16 degrees Saturday and Sunday amid showers. Sunny skies are expected Monday, along with the start of a slow warming trend.
Photo: Getty Images