Flood Watch Issued for Southern California

Let the mudslides begin!

The National Weather Service is so confident that Southern California will get heavy rain on Monday it has issued a flash flood watch for northeastern Orange County, where tens of thousands of acres were stripped bare over the past couple of years by wildfires. (Live O.C. weather map.)

As the chart below shows, forecasters say the Carbon Canyon area, where the 2008 Freeway fire occurred, could receive 1.63” of rain by late Monday night. The flash flood watch goes into effect at noon Monday and will last until 8 p.m. A winter storm warning also has been issued for the San Bernardino Mountains, where up to 2 feet of snow is expected to fall above the 4,500 foot level. (Mountain road conditions |(California ski report.)

Then there’s the wind.

“Orange County will get heavy rain, but the real story is the wind and the snow,” says Miguel Miller, a weather service forecaster. “There could be possibly damaging winds out of the south, with gusts to 50 mph in places like Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa and Newport Beach.”

The weather service has issued a high wind watch for all of Orange County, effective at 3 p.m. Monday. The watch will last until midnight Monday.

Seriously, we have a lot of burned areas that don't have anything left to hold the ground together. Any significant rainfall, especially if it comes in a short period of time, can cause tons of earth to start heading downhill. Monday could be pretty rough on a number of communities.