By Reginald Stanley. Posted January 24, 2024, 11:17 AM.

Moist westerly flow amplified by an elongated Pacific jet stream brought waves of rain, mountain snow and even thunderstorms to the region between Saturday and Tuesday, with particularly high rain totals to the south.

Rain began Saturday as a trough moved inland over California, with periods of showers occurring throughout the day across the region. WeatherCurrents' station in South Fallbrook recorded the highest totals for both Saturday and Sunday, with 1.78 inches by Sunday night. Murrieta, French Valley and Hemet also exceeded one inch of rain over the weekend. The weekend storm was less beneficial to other portions of the eastern valleys, and especially northerly locations such as Simi Valley (0.30 inches) and Pinon Hills (0.04 inches). Rain on Sunday was more focused in the AM hours throughout much of the region. A larger, colder, and overall wetter wave of precipitation arrived Monday morning, bringing much more widespread rainfall compared to the weekend. Thunderstorms were present in Monday's storm, with severe thunderstorms occurring in San Diego, resulting in flooding there. Several smaller waves of precipitation arrived again Monday evening, carrying embedded thunderstorms as they moved southeast across the inland valleys and San Diego County yet again. Thunder and lightning were observed as an intense rain band swept across the western Riverside County valleys Monday evening, with particularly intense activity over Hemet and San Jacinto stretching to the Temecula Valley. Some residual showers were still occurring after midnight into early Tuesday morning before clearing out.

A majority of WeatherCurrents stations received more rainfall on Monday compared to Saturday-Sunday. Overall, storm totals were quite high across the region, with most communities inland receiving between 1.5 and 3 inches of rainfall. South Fallbrook topped the list with 3.53 inches by Tuesday. The storm was less beneficial to northerly locations like Pinon Hills and Simi Valley, both being the only stations in the WeatherCurrents network to have received less than one inch in total. In Temecula Valley's Wine Country, 2.33 inches was recorded in total (courtesy of Jim Sappington). The rains brought some relief in what has been a below-average rainy season to-date, while longer-range forecasts indicate the possible return of wet weather to the region in early February.

Here are the rain totals for the WeatherCurrents network and associates:

1. Riverside (Orangecrest) precipitation borrowed from nearby Wunderground station.