Cooler temperatures — and maybe some showers — headed to SoCal this weekend.
Sunday: Mostly cloudy
Tornadoes — and tornadoes in the eye of the storm — were among the hazards anticipated for Southern California.
The National Weather Service is reminding storm chasers that Saturday’s forecast is based on “a single radar image and a few spotter reports.” It’s not “in any way a forecast of the severe weather potential on Sunday or Monday.”
Forecasters aren’t saying a tornado may or may not be possible this week, adding that if one does occur, it won’t be the worst possible.
“We don’t want to make things any worse than they need to be,” said meteorologist Tom Scriber of the National Weather Service in Oxnard.
The agency’s most recent tornado forecasting model does not indicate as many as 10 tornadoes may occur this weekend. But more are expected.
“That’s the way it is,” Scriber said. “We haven’t had a really good look at how many will happen.”
As for rain, Scriber said the National Weather Service has not issued a single tornado warning for rain in years.
“We typically don’t,” he said.
A storm might not be imminent either, as forecasters look at the most recent data and use a “very wide level of tolerance.”
“We don’t want to make things any worse than they need to be,” Scriber said.
Another caveat: Although the National Weather Service issues tornado watches and warnings “at a minimum every six hours in areas where we have a reasonable confidence that a severe thunderstorm will be present,” that means it has issued as many as 300 warnings and watches in recent days.
“There are no guarantees that we will issue a tornado watch, in any case,” he said.
Monday: Sunny, with a high pressure system
Sunday will be nearly a perfect day — with the exception of rain — for