Atmospheric River Brought Wettest Christmas Eve And Day To Downtown Los Angeles In 54 Years
- - Atmospheric River Brought Wettest Christmas Eve And Day To Downtown Los Angeles In 54 Years
Jonathan Belles December 28, 2025 at 2:30 AM
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Multiple potent storm systems slammed California during Christmas week, bringing in multiple atmospheric rivers to the state. These storms helped to generate torrential rainfall that brought the wettest Christmas Eve and Day to Downtown Los Angeles in over 50 years.
Northern California First
The most recent atmospheric river dumped anywhere from 3 to 14 inches of rain in Northern California's coastal ranges and Sierra foothills from December 20 - 22.
That led to 69 reports of flooding, 31 reports of landslides and another 22 reports of wind damage in the state across this time period. Among the most serious flash flooding occurred in and near Redding, in far Northern California, where water rescues occurred.
(MORE: Impacts In California)
Christmas Flooding For Southern California
Rainfall continued across the state on December 23, but the most notable rainfall peaked for Southern California on Christmas Eve, where a rare "high risk" of excessive rainfall was issued for parts of the LA Basin.
Daily rainfall records were broken across much of Southern California on Christmas Eve, including at the Los Angeles airport (1.88 inches of rain, breaking the previous record of 1.60 inches set in 1971) and Burbank (3.42 inches of rain, breaking the previous record of 2.29 inches set in 1971).
The two-day rain totals in Downtown Los Angeles from Christmas Eve to Christmas ranked as the rainiest for that period since 1971 (54 years) and the fourth rainiest overall on record.
Expanding to a three-day total, Downtown Los Angeles saw their 2nd wettest December 24-December 26, with places like Santa Barbara, Oxnard, Burbank and Long Beach all seeing their wettest December 24-26 on record.
The most rain from the event fell in the Ventura County Mountains, with several stations reporting over 17 inches of rain over the course of three days ending early the day after Christmas.
The Ventura River peaked early December 26 at 20.78 feet (major flood stage) after rising narly 6 feet in only 4 hours, prompting at least one rescue after floodwaters stranded drivers.
(MORE: Latest California News)
Cleanup crews went out in full force across Southern California, including all day on Christmas, trying to clean up after the record-smashing flooding.
Wrightwood, California, in San Bernardino County, experienced devastating mud and debris flows and flooding on Christmas Eve, prompting evacuation warnings.
While flooding was widespread across southern portions of the state, the big rainfall events that occurred in late December set up the state's reservoirs for a good water year. These reservoirs are the state's water supply during the drier months.
Major Snowfall For Sierra Nevada
Not all of the news was all bad with this atmospheric river, as this was the first significant snowfall of the winter season that brought feet of snowfall to Sierra Nevada.
Along with the tremendous amount of snowfall, gusts over 100 mph made travel conditions impossible if you were trying to travel through the mountain roads.
Tornado Observed
As if Christmas week wasn't hard enough, there was even a tornado confirmed in California. An EF0 tornado with peak winds of 80 mph was reported on Christmas Day in the neighborhood of Boyle Heights.
Source: “AOL Breaking”
