Powerful Winter Storm To Hit Los Angeles Christmas Night

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – Angelenos driving home after enjoying their holiday celebrations will need to be extra cautious due to a powerful storm and rain on the region Christmas night.

The storm front began to move into the Southland late Wednesday morning, bringing scattered showers and dropping snow levels to 4,500 feet.

However, it was late Wednesday night and into Thursday morning when the storm is expected to ramp up considerably. Snow levels could drop as low as 2,500 feet, while rainfall totals of up to 1.5 inches are possible.

"It's really tonight into tomorrow when that heavy rain and the cold core of the storm will move in, dropping snow levels significantly, really impacting travel into tomorrow," CBS2 Meteorologist Danielle Gersh said.

Snow accumulations of up to 8 inches are possible in the Antelope Valley, with Palmdale and Lancaster potentially seeing snow.

The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning from 7 p.m. Wednesday to 10 p.m. Thursday for L.A. County mountain ranges, excluding the Santa Monica Mountains. Up to two feet of snow are possible at elevations above 5,000 feet.

There's also the potential for flash flooding and shallow debris flows in recent burn scar areas. There could also be power outages due to heavy rain and gusty winds.

In Simi Valley, where the Easy Fire tore through back in October forcing thousands of evacuations, several Ventura County fire stations were giving out free sandbags to residents ahead of the rain.

"Every time we get rains coming, typically people that have dealt with flooding in the past will come down and get sandbags," Ventura County Firefighter Colton Gabrielson told CBS2 Wednesday. "It's always good to prepare early. We live in the foothills, so we have a lot of homes that are up against these hillsides. So after fires, the burn scars, the rain will come down, we'll get a lot of mud, mudslides, and a lot of rain that will bring rain into the homes."