Threat of rain, chill put in play
By: Kristina Davis and Susan Shroder

Football fans heading to Qualcomm Stadium for the big game tonight may need to wear rain slickers over their Chargers jerseys as the tail end of a storm system from the Pacific Northwest sweeps through the county.

The National Weather Service has predicted up to a 40 percent chance of drizzle or light showers through tonight.

“We're probably not going to get anything measurable. If it is measurable, it will be very light,” meteorologist Art Horton said.

A thick marine layer should keep temperatures in the 50s when the Chargers take the field at 5 p.m. for the AFC wild-card game against the Indianapolis Colts. The field, freshly painted after Tuesday's Holiday Bowl, will remain covered for most of today to protect it from precipitation.

Tonight's low is expected to reach 47 degrees.

Horton said the local marine layer continued to deepen yesterday and will likely stay in place today.

“What that means is that there shouldn't be any delays for the airports, but that puts the dense-fog issues closer to the mountain slopes,” he said.

Those dense-fog areas would include Interstate 8 in Alpine and along state Route 79 east of Ramona.

Yesterday, fog delayed a handful of early morning flights at Lindbergh Field. Visibility was down to less than a quarter-mile in other areas, such as Carlsbad and Brown Field.

The skies are expected to clear by tomorrow, with mostly sunny conditions and a high around 58.

During the last six months of 2008, the county received 6.05 inches of rain. That's about three times as much as the normal average of 2.19 inches.

January usually is the wettest month of the year, with an average of seven days of rain, according to the weather service.

But there's no guarantee that storm systems will keep arriving in San Diego County for the rest of this winter. In some years past, the second half of the rainy season turned out to be dry.

Water managers said the region and California were still suffering from a long drought, cutbacks in water supply, and rising wholesale prices to buy and deliver water.

Most cities statewide have passed, or are planning to pass, water-rate increases for their residents and businesses. They also could impose mandatory conservation measures – such as limiting outdoor irrigation – in the near future, if the drought continues.

“Nothing has changed,” said Larry Purcell, water resources manager at the San Diego County Water Authority. “Water storage throughout the state is way down and has been way down for awhile. We're going to need several years of above-average rainfall and snowfall to even begin to claw our way out of this deficit.”

Residents are encouraged to shut off their outdoor irrigation systems until the soil starts to dry out an inch below the ground.

Ways to reduce water use include:

Shorten showers to save 2.5 gallons per minute.

Use a broom instead of a hose to clean driveways and sidewalks to save 8 to 18 gallons per minute.

Fill the bathtub half-full while bathing to save 15 to 25 gallons per bath.

Fix leaky toilets to save 30 to 50 gallons per day per toilet.

Water only before 6 a.m. and after 8 p.m. to reduce evaporation and interference from wind to save 20 to 25 gallons per day.

Install covers on pools and spas to reduce evaporation to save 30 gallons per day.

Install water-efficient drip-irrigation systems for trees, shrubs and flowers to save 20 to 25 gallons per day.

For more tips, go to 20gallonchallenge.com.

SOURCE: San Diego County Water Authority