By Reginald Stanley. Posted September 8, 2022, 6:08 PM.

Some sporadic showers have occurred Thursday morning as the outer bands of Hurricane Kay began to reach Southern California, amid a grueling heat wave already gripping the region.

Increasing cloud cover mixed with smoke from the Fairview Fire had become very apparent across the region Thursday, with light measurable precipitation already noted in several locations - namely in Moreno Valley and Pinon Hills, where totals of .04 and .02 inches were recorded, respectively. In East Highland, 0.25 inches was reported (courtesy of Peter Michas). Another very warm night is expected going into Friday, with some areas seeing possible low temperatures around 80 degrees once again. Thunderstorms are possible Thursday night and Friday, however the main concern for Southern California remains the likelihood of heavy rain and high winds through Saturday morning. Projected rain totals through Saturday are between 0.5 and 0.7 inches for most areas west of the mountains, with potentially higher amounts of up to one inch in parts of southwestern Riverside County and San Diego County. Higher amounts of up to two inches (and locally higher amounts) are predicted for the mountains and western deserts.

Tropical Storm Kay has varied in strength during the past 24 hours at the time of this writing - Kay had peaked as a Category 2 hurricane on September 7, however has since weakened and been downgraded to a Tropical Storm as of September 8. As of Thursday afternoon, Kay was impacting the central Baja California peninsula and continuing to move northwest off the Baja coast. Strong winds are expected inland, with maximum gusts of between 40 and 60 MPH possible across the inland valleys Friday. Lingering precipitation and thunderstorms could remain Sunday-Monday amid a very moist environment, before a low pressure trough near the California coast brings cooler weather next week.

Tropical Storm Kay - or former Hurricane Kay - is particularly notable in that it may be the closest a storm of this type has approached Southern California since Hurricane Nora in 1997. Kay is not projected to make landfall in California, however Kay had already briefly made landfall in Baja California on Thursday.