Los Angeles Mudslide, Photos, Radar

A mudslide occurred on Saturday in Los Angeles on Forest Lawn Drive. The rain was less than two inches according to Doppler Radar and news reports, but it didn't take much as the Hollywood Hills are high enough to create rapid runoff and recent forest fires which scoured the hills made it worse.

Several cars are buried up to their wheels after a cloudburst dumped heavy rain on a burn area in the Hollywood Hills, background, causing a mudslide on Forest Lawn Drive in the Toluca Lake area of Los Angeles Saturday, Sept. 22, 2007. (AP Photo/ Reed Saxon)

This news is being covered well on Google News. The L.A. times has a good article and additional photos are available on FOX 11's site, where they also have some videos. Below is where the mudslide occurred as shown in Google Earth (see similar photo below); click here for a Google Maps 2-D representation.

The San Jose Mercury News says the mudslide occurred at 1 PM, which would have been just after this heavy rain indication on AccuWeather.com RadarPlus (the location of the mudslide is underneath the dark red colors):

If you download the radar movie,* you can see that the same area was then hit with additional rainfall several times later in the day, which probably didn't help. The road was reopened at 9 PM, according to CBS2.

This likelihood was predicted by AccuWeather.com meteorologist and Western Expert Paul Yeager (PREMIUM | PRO) on Friday:

The sun breaks through over the Verdugo Mountains as several cars are buried up to their wheels after a cloudburst dumped a heavy load of rain on a burn area of the Hollywood Hills, causing a mudslide on Forest Lawn Drive in the Toluca Lake area of Los Angeles, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2007. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

Another one of our Western experts, Ken Clark (PREMIUM | PRO), called the storm system that brought the rain "unusually strong storm for this time of year" on Friday and also gave this interesting note on rain in (usually dry) Death Valley, California:

Ken also posted this picture of the incoming swirling low pressure system on Friday:

*Displayed through exclusive agreement with Associated Press, not for redistribution. Did you know? AccuWeather helps the AP sell the AP Photo Archive to schools and universities worldwide.

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