Rare October storm brings heavy rain and possible mudslides to Southern California

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By JAIMIE DING and HALLIE GOLDEN
Updated 10:09 AM CDT, October 14, 2025
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — A rare October storm arrived in California on Tuesday and threatened to pummel wildfire-scarred Los Angeles neighborhoods with heavy rain, high winds and possible mudslides. Some homes were ordered to evacuate.

Downpours were moving through the area early Tuesday, with drivers hydroplaning and some accidents reported on flooded roads.

A flash flood warning was in effect for part of Santa Barbara County, where the sheriff’s office issued a shelter-in-place order for an area that experienced a wildfire last year and was subject to debris flow.

Rainfall amounts by Tuesday morning ranged from less than half an inch (1.3 centimeters) in Los Angeles County to about 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) in San Luis Obispo County, the weather service said.



Read more: https://apnews.com/article/palisades-fire-debris-storm-rain-alaska-la-c3aa0d54871d9d2de9fe17d844252612

[Brother Buzz]

1. Some burn scar areas ARE under mandatory evacuation order

[msongs]

2. good news, give the chapparal and forests a good soaking so they will be more fire resistant nt

[Igel]

3. That's the upside.

Then there's the downside: Given water, seeds with germinate and low-level vegetation will grow to enable more field fires.

A few decades ago a wet winter produced some pretty severe fires that took out a lot of nice homes and severely lowered the elevation of some of the lots they'd been built on. And the immediate warning was that all the wet would produce a lot of verdant growth and wildflowers that would, in the fall, turn into brown combustible material.

That's the Southland. It's adapted specifically to have fires. Many Angelenos have basically found a new way to replicate the risk houseowners have in much wetter states, of building low in a flood plain.