RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) -- Meteorologists say you can expect to sweat this weekend, with occasional thunderstorms and a break in the humidity just in time for Labor Day.
Through Sunday, temperatures in Palm Springs will be about the same as temperatures in San Diego, National Weather Service meteorologist Alex Tardy said Friday.
The coastal marine layer has retreated, he said, but it should come back Sunday or Monday and when it comes back, the sea breeze will cool off the coast and Palm Springs will heat up.
Violent thunderstorms slammed into the area Thursday, hitting Riverside and San Bernardino counties especially hard. Residents were left to deal Friday with power outages, mudslides, flooding, downed trees and other messes.
Firefighters were surveying damage to a Riverside fire station where a ceiling collapsed. Besides damage to the building, water ruined about $100,000 in radio equipment.
Bernadette Ayala, 22, of Riverside, told the Riverside Press-Enterprise, that it was unfortunate the storms occurred on trash day in her neighborhood.
"Every trash can on our street was floating," Ayala said. "The yard waste was floating onto our lawns and up our driveways."
There were many reports of cars stuck in deep water. Emergency responders warned motorists: "Turn around. Don't drown! Six inches of water can lift your car."
At the Acton pump station in the Antelope Valley, 2.56 inches of rain was reported in just 60-minutes Thursday afternoon, the weather service said.
On Friday, heavy rain again pelted both counties as mudslides and flooding were reported in areas burned by a fire that destroyed more than 20 homes and blackened 20,000 acres earlier this month.
There were no reports of any injuries, but Highway 243 was closed and later reopened.
Pressure coming from Mexico is causing the problems, said meteorologist Eric Boldt in Oxnard. "People will feel the heat and humidity. The muggy, sticky feeling will last over the weekend," he said.
Los Angeles and Ventura counties are right on the edge but there will probably be some threat of thunderstorms, especially in the mountains and deserts.
The monsoonal moisture has been considerably stronger than the area is used to between mid-July and mid-September, Tardy said.
The problem is the wind isn't coming directly from Mexico, but west-southwest and that's generating drier air, Boldt said.
For this weekend, it will stay warm but the humidity will drop.
Temperatures will be in the 90s inland and low 100s in the desert, Tardy said. But deserts will heat up through the week and by Wednesday will be back to 110.
