Rain last week may signal early end to Malibu fire season Play

The calendar may say that fire season in Malibu is halfway over, but the rain that came last week may be the beginning of the end of it. The local area got between three-quarters to one inch of rain in the last week.

That's not enough to end fire danger completely, but a lot more rain is on the way in five days.

UCLA meteorologist Daniel Swain says the tropical rain door looks like it's about to bust open and stay open. "As we get closer to Halloween, the likelihood of rain really goes up statewide, and there really might not be any clear dry windows thereafter.

"And then it looks like the seasonal rains really might be arriving in earnest beyond what we've seen right now."

Swain says the warm water from El Niño — the rift Kelvin wave — has already moved up past San Francisco and is on its way to Seattle. A jet stream is now setting up a possible conveyor belt of rain from the subtropics aimed directly at California for at least a week starting next week, and it may be with us even longer.

"This is a pattern I would expect to see continuing through this winter," Swain said. "We actually expect these warm anomalies to further expand along the coast and persist the entire winter.

"So I think this is going to be a theme — with increased surface instability, a strong subtropical jet overhead, and increased propensity for thunderstorm activity during storms this winter."

El Niño continues to strengthen. It has reached a brief plateau in the last couple of weeks, but all indications are that it's going to continue to strengthen.

To review the forecast: the highest high tides ever expected Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday; rain on Friday; then a very wet November. The very highest tides of the year will be between Nov. 24 to 26 and Dec. 23 through 25 — Thanksgiving and Christmas.