Strong gusts bring rain to High Desert from West Coast, prompt federal 'wind advisory'

Charlie McGee, Victorville Daily Press
·2 min read
A cloudy but dry day quickly shifted to a rare state of steady rain in the High Desert as an atmospheric river pounded in from the Los Angeles area.
A cloudy but dry day quickly shifted to a rare state of steady rain in the High Desert as an atmospheric river pounded in from the Los Angeles area.

A cloudy but dry-as-usual day in the High Desert quickly shifted to a rare state of steady rain Thursday afternoon as an atmospheric river from the West Coast pounded eastbound over Los Angeles with plenty of heavy moisture left for San Bernardino County.

Residents of the Victorville and Barstow areas wouldn't be getting the full thrust of the storm, given its path traveling above the mountains that tower just south of the High Desert. Still, locals could expect around a 10th to a quarter of an inch of new rain when the sky eventually cleared up, said Andy Gorelow, a forecaster at the National Weather Service's Las Vegas office.

But "the moisture should continue through much of the afternoon out there, the next three to four hours," Gorelow told the Daily Press around noon Thursday, "so you're probably in the thick of it right now."

The federal NWS's San Diego office issued a "wind advisory" at noon for areas including Victorville, Hesperia, Apple Valley, and Lucerne Valley. The advisory, set to remain in effect until 6 p.m., warned that "gusty winds could blow around unsecured objects. Tree limbs could be blown down, and a few power outages may result."

Any rain at all is a rare and celebrated event among many locals in the High Desert. Gorelow said the mountains of San Bernardino County could potentially log as much as two inches of rain from the atmospheric river passing through Thursday, with the powerful storm's leftover moisture greeting Mojave Desert residents on the other side of the ranges.

The NWS's Las Vegas office issued its own "flood advisory" for the entire counties of San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange shortly after noon Thursday. However, the advisory was only set to last a couple of hours until 2:08 p.m. It said "urban and small stream flooding caused by excessive rainfall is expected" in "a portion of Southwest California," with specific risks "in low-lying and poor drainage areas" that could lead to "water over roadways" and "rocks and mud over mountain highways."

Charlie McGee covers California’s High Desert for the Daily Press, focusing on the city of Barstow and its surrounding communities. He is also a Report for America corps member with The GroundTruth Project, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization dedicated to supporting the next generation of journalists in the U.S. and worldwide. McGee may be reached at 760-955-5341 or cmcgee@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @bycharliemcgee.

This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Strong gusts bring rain to High Desert