Fresno area to get a little more rain before storm leaves Wednesday

Remnant moisture from Hurricane Dolores brought showers and thunderstorms to the Sierra Nevada for a second day Sunday, but the Fresno area remained mostly dry.

Jeff Barlow, a meterologist with the National Weather Service in Hanford, said Fresno was expected to receive .02 inches of rain Sunday, while the Sierra could get up to half an inch, plus another quarter inch overnight.

Fresno is expected to see another small dose of rain Monday afternoon — one-tenth of an inch along with lightning and some thunderstorms, Barlow said. Meanwhile, the Sierra could get up to half an inch of rain.

By Tuesday, Valley residents should expect to pull out their watering cans again. But the Sierra is expected to receive another quarter inch of rain, accompanied by frequent lightning and gusty winds of 20 to 45 mph.

Wednesday could see .02 inches of rain in the mountains before Dolores heads out.

Barlow said Monday should be cloudy with temperatures in the low 90s. The rest of the week is expected to remain in the mid 90s.

Saturday’s downpour measured .36 of an inch, making it a new rainfall record for July 18, Barlow said. The previous record was a trace amount, set in 2006.

“It doesn’t normally rain much around here,” he said. “So, yeah, we really crushed it. This record will probably sit for a while.”

It was the same story for much of Southern California. Weather service meteorologist Joe Sirard in Oxnard said Saturday’s rainfall broke at least 11 regional records for daily rainfall in July, including five records for any day in July. And more was falling again Sunday in Southern California, disrupting Major League Baseball games in San Diego and Anaheim.

July is typically the driest month of the year in Southern California. Saturday’s 0.36 inches of rainfall in downtown Los Angeles broke the July 14, 1886, record of 0.24 inches – a nearly 130-year record. Sirard said.

He called the record especially significant because downtown Los Angeles has the region’s longest recording climate station, dating back to July 1, 1877.

The rain was credited with helping firefighters get control of wildfires in the San Gabriel Mountains, including one that caused terror Friday afternoon on Interstate 15 in the Cajon Pass.

On Saturday, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. reported 44 outages affecting 73,780 customers in Fresno, mostly in the northwest area and west of Highway 99. By Sunday evening, there were 56 outages affecting 224 customers. There was no estimate for when power would be restored.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This story was originally published July 19, 2015 at 6:32 PM with the headline "Fresno area to get a little more rain before storm leaves Wednesday."