The sixth major storm to hit San Diego County since November unleashed heavy rain across much of the region before dawn Wednesday, further saturating slide-prone coastal bluffs and bringing urban waterways to life once again, the National Weather Service said.
The system, which moved ashore Tuesday, will clear off to the east by Wednesday afternoon and could be followed by another significant storm late Sunday or early Monday.
Through 5 a.m. Wednesday the storm had dropped more than an inch of precipitation in many areas, including Santee, which received 1.19 inches, and Fashion Valley and Point Loma, which each received 1.11 inches.
Additional totals: Palomar Mountain, 1.73 inches; Camp Pendleton, 1.17 inches; Miramar Lake, 0.97 inches; Rancho Bernardo, 0.90 inches; Mt. Woodson, 0.87 inches; Lake Cuyamaca, 0.05 inches; San Marcos, 0.84 inches; Carlsbad, 0.83 inches; Encinitas, 0.83 inches; Barona, 0.83 inches; San Diego International Airport, 0.82 inches.
Fallbrook got 0.82 inches; Poway, 0.82 inches; North Island, 0.77 inches; Escondido, 0.76 inches; Ramona Airport, 0.74 inches; Alpine, 0.69 inches; La Mesa, 0.66 inches; Vista, 0.50 inches; Chula Vista, 0.30 inches.
Although the storm is clearing out, there is ongoing concerns about potential slides.
“This is a threat to really steep coastal slopes,” said Alex Tardy, a National Weather Service forecaster. “They’ve been getting hit with big waves and strong winds. The waves were in the 8-to-12-foot range in the county (Tuesday).”
Large cracks have appeared in the cliffs immediately south of the Torrey Pines Gliderport in La Jolla, and the soil has been shifting on the switchback trail at Beacons, a surf break in Encinitas.
Just after 6 p.m. Tuesday, rail authorities announced that overnight freight trips to San Diego would halt due to newly detected slope movement at Mariposa Point in San Clemente. “Movement of the slope accelerated from about 1 to 2 inches before the rain to 10 to 12 inches,” transit agencies said in a t statement.
A project team made up of Orange County Transit Authority and Metrolink representatives said they decided to halt overnight trips “out of an abundance of caution,” but had detected no track instability at the base of the private slope, which workers spent the day protecting with plastic tarps.
The storm that reached Southern California on Tuesday unleashed particularly heavy rain in greater Los Angeles, which received more than 2 inches in some areas.
