The storm system that hit Southern California with flash floods is now bringing heavy rain to much of the rest of the southwestern U.S.
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00:00 Our top story tonight is taking us to the West Coast, where the rain is now starting to move out of Southern California,
00:06 after many cities were inundated with heavy flooding.
00:09 The storm is now moving into the Southwest, bringing rain to parts of Arizona.
00:14 It will also bring heavy snow to the Rockies.
00:17 Places like Denver, Colorado will see snow for the holiday weekend.
00:21 Yes, Denver, Colorado and much of the Centennial State will be seeing a white Christmas.
00:26 And I'll give you a look at what's happening across the lower 48 right now.
00:30 The radar picture, there are a couple of areas of rain.
00:33 One is up into Chicagoland, where they've got some pretty good rain going on across the lower Great Lakes.
00:38 And the other one is really causing problems now into Arizona.
00:42 This is the storm system that went through Southern California over the last couple of days
00:46 and gave us all that flooding in Santa Barbara, north and west of Los Angeles.
00:50 But now we've got thunderstorms. We've got flash flood warnings.
00:54 Yuma, Arizona, you're under a flash flood warning.
00:56 And some of the very rural terrain outside of Yuma, west of Phoenix.
01:02 And look at that line of thunderstorms.
01:04 We've had some wind gusts between 50 and 60 miles an hour here.
01:08 So this is a line of thunderstorms that's really impressive.
01:11 And you want to be inside if you're in the path of that.
01:15 As it moves toward the Phoenix area over the next hour or so,
01:18 you have to make sure you are not out and about and just be weather aware,
01:23 because these storms have a history of producing 50 mile an hour gusts, flooding downpours.
01:28 And not to mention, we do have some flash flood warnings that are active right now.
01:32 Now, I want to show you the flood reports over the last couple of days.
01:35 Now, if you look, it's really in those areas of Southern California, around Los Angeles, Ventura County to the north and west,
01:42 Santa Barbara County, and a lot of these are flash flood warnings.
01:45 There was water over the roads, and we're getting some reports in of how much rain did fall.
01:50 And these are all very nearby, either Santa Barbara or in between Santa Barbara and L.A.
01:55 So that part of Southern California, between 6 and 10 inches of rain.
01:59 Montecito had that big flooding event last wet season.
02:03 You had 7 and a half inches this time.
02:05 There were so many roads that had issues here, folks.
02:08 Thankfully, we are drying out.
02:09 And these are the rainfall totals that we saw through this Friday evening.
02:14 Now, we saw more than 8 inches of rain in those areas of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
02:20 Now, this is a look at the upper level low, which is finally making its way inland.
02:24 So it's going to lose some of its moisture.
02:27 But there's a lot of moisture still to be had.
02:29 If you look at the whites and greens on this map, this is water vapor, very moist air mass moving in.
02:35 And an upper level low is like a big vacuum cleaner sucking the air up and spitting out the rain.
02:39 And these are the rainfall totals we've seen just over the last 24 hours.
02:43 Phoenix, Tucson, Yuma. Hey, these are areas that have been bone dry for weeks, if not longer.
02:48 We've had a half inch to an inch. That's why we have flood watches in place,
02:51 because as we head through this Friday night, that'll be the area of heaviest rain and even thunderstorms.
02:57 From Phoenix to Tucson and down to the Mexican border, localized flooding and not to mention a mudslide risk and burn scar areas.
03:04 So, yes, we have a flood watch. Be advised here.
03:07 If you live in Southern Arizona and into Southern California as well,
03:11 and those would be the greatest impact areas moving forward through this Friday night.
03:16 Southern California, your kind of things are improving for you as things are getting kind of nasty for you in Southern Arizona.
03:23 Hey, we got good news, though. Saturday, we're going to dry things off for the Golden State as that storm moves its way into the Rockies
03:29 with some snow on the four corners and some rain that will turn heavy into Texas this weekend.