Robert Hopwood

The Desert Sun

Dust off your umbrellas. It's going to rain.

A storm system headed toward California from the northwest is expected to pull subtropical moisture into the Southland and across the Coachella Valley sometime next week, said Brett Albright, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego.

Valley residents could see rain as early as Tuesday morning, he said. By the time the storm ends, the Coachella Valley could get up to 1/2 inch of rain, or more, and the mountain tops should be covered in snow.

It's still too early to accurately predict how next week's storm system will move through the region, Albright cautioned, but forecasters are certain it'll produce a lot of precipitation across the state over several days.

That should help ease drought conditions somewhat, he said, but California still needs many more storms like it to end the drought.

Next week's storm "looks like it will be toward the more beneficial end than some of the other storms we've seen this year," Albright said.

That's good news in a state suffering through one of the worst droughts it has ever experienced.

The water year, which began Oct. 1, has gotten off to an "abysmal start" across most of California, Eric Luebehusen, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, wrote in this week's U.S. Drought Monitor report.

More than 90,150 square miles of California – an area larger than Minnesota and Delaware combined – are in an "exceptional drought," which is the U.S. Drought Monitor's worst category.

While it did rain during the past week across some areas of northern California, none of that moisture made it's way down the 5.

In fact, many areas of Southern California are as dry or even drier than they were at this time last year, according to the National Weather Service.

Since July 1, Palm Springs International Airport has recorded 1.26 inches of rain, which is 67 percent of normal. That's only .01 inches more rain than it had recorded by this time last year.

The airport in Thermal, meanwhile, has recorded only .45 inches of rain, which is 45 percent of normal. By this time last year, it had gotten 1.46 inches.

Those numbers look good compared to other places in Southern California. Rainfall in some areas of Los Angeles, for example, is only 20 percent of normal, according to Luebehusen's report.