A north Pacific storm that’s drawing moisture from distant Tropical Storm Trudy will spread across San Diego County late Tuesday night and drop a half-inch or more of precipitation through Friday, the National Weather Service says.
The system also will provide relief from the hot, dry Santa Ana winds that produced a huge wildfire last week at Camp Pendleton. Wednesday’s high in San Diego is forecast to be 69 to 70 degrees, 4 to 5 degrees below normal.
The Santa Anas were preceded by heavy rain across the county. But the moisture didn’t have time to generate fresh vegetation to blunt the outbreak of wildfire, the weather service said.
San Diego has recorded 1.04 inches of precipitation since Oct. 1, more than twice as much as the city averages for the entire month. Virtually all of that moisture was produced by Tropical Storm Rachel, which made landfall about 90 miles south of San Diego on Oct. 10.
Rachel caused patches of coastal erosion and flooding in several spots, including Tamarack State Beach and Oceanside.
Trudy is also very strong. But it is about 1,000 miles south-southeast of San Diego, and it is not following a direct path toward Southern California.
More trouble might be brewing.
The National Hurricane Center says that a tropical depression is developing off southwest Mexico, the same region that gave rise to Rachel and Trudy.