The storm is hitting California late in the rainy season, bringing rain to the north and snow in the Sierra Nevada, and Los Angeles is expected to receive light rain during the Tuesday afternoon commute.
High winds can make driving difficult, especially for high-end vehicles like big rigs. Gusts of up to 65 mph are possible on the desert slopes of the San Bernardino Mountains. In Death Valley and the San Gorgonio Pass, which connects the Inland Empire and the Coachella Valley, winds could hit 60 mph, rising to 50 mph over the San Gabriel Mountains and Antelope Valley and up to 40 mph elsewhere in the region.
The storm is expected to bring one-tenth to one-third of an inch of rain to the Los Angeles and Ventura areas and peak between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. Tuesday, the National Weather Service office in Oxnard said.
Rain was expected to arrive early in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, bringing up to half an inch of rain, mostly between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. Tuesday.
There is a 20% to 42% chance of rain in Orange County, the Inland Empire and coastal San Diego County Tuesday night through Wednesday morning.
Getting a hurricane in the middle of April may seem unusual in California, but it has happened before. In 2024, a storm hit in mid-April, according to NWS meteorologist Lisa Phillips, and in a storm in late April 2025, the city of Los Angeles received 0.22 inches of rain.
So far this month, downtown LA has recorded 0.38 inches of rain; the average for the first 20 days of the month is 0.55 inches.
“It’s definitely the end of our rainy season,” Phillips said.
Rain was expected to be heaviest in the north. Much of Northern California and the Central Valley could receive anywhere from a half inch to 1½ inches of rain Monday through Wednesday. Two to three inches were possible in some parts of the Sierra foothills.
Thunderstorms and light hail were possible.
“If thunder rumbles or you see lightning: stop all outdoor activities; get inside a sturdy building; seek shelter in a hard-top vehicle; wait 30 minutes after the storm to return outside,” the Hanford weather office said.
A winter storm watch went into effect Tuesday morning and continues through Wednesday evening for the Sierra Nevada. Up to 2 feet of snow could fall at higher elevations, and 12 to 18 inches at elevations 5,000 feet above sea level, the weather service office in Sacramento said.
“Travel may be very difficult” across the Sierra, the weather service said. “Travel delays are possible.”
This water year so far has been average in terms of rainfall. Downtown LA has received 18.98 inches of rain since October 1, the start of the water year; the average at this point is 13.53 inches. The City of San Francisco received 18.37 inches of rain, short of the 21.48 inches average for this time of year.
But alarm bells have been ringing over California enduring its second-worst drought in 50 years, a sign of how rising temperatures from climate change are exacerbating the West’s long-term water supply problems.
It was the hottest and driest March in the record books for California – hotter than, on average, May. That heat melted much of the snow in California’s mountains — the Sierra’s frozen reservoir — releasing into the ocean a staggering amount of water that the state would like to freeze and store for later use in the summer. California has traditionally relied on the Sierra snowpack to store about 30% of its water.
All that heat and premature melting of the snowpack means the state’s forests will dry out a month earlier than normal, or sooner, increasing the risk of wildfires, according to Peter Gleick, a leading water scientist and founder of the Pacific Institute.
Cities and farms will likely still have plenty of water because Northern California’s major lakes are nearly full.
But Southern California’s other major water source, the Colorado River, has also been affected by a prolonged drought that began in 2000. The drought is considered the worst in 1,200 years, exacerbated by global warming.
The Colorado River is home to the largest and second largest dams in the nation – Lake Mead, near Las Vegas and held back by the Hoover Dam, and Lake Powell, located on the Arizona-Utah border.
The Trump administration is taking urgent action to prevent Lake Powell’s water level from getting too low. Lake Powell is 23% full.
The measures include reducing how much water leaves the lake, which flows through the Colorado River into Lake Mead and supplies water to Southern California, Nevada and Arizona.
Lake Mead was last filled in 2000, and its water levels have gradually declined. It was 32% full as of Saturday. Experts say they don’t expect Lakes Mead and Powell to fill up again in our lifetime.
“What we have in our California lakes is all we’re going to get,” Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources, said earlier this year. “So it means that every Californian needs to use water as carefully as possible.”
Times staff writers Sean Greene, Ian James and Terry Castleman contributed to this report.
