Collisions involving trains and vehicles have dropped dramatically despite increases in highway and rail traffic. The Federal Railroad Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Transportation, points to engineering improvements including flashing lights, gates and traffic dividers, stepped up enforcement of traffic regulations and motorist education. About 94 percent of collisions are a result of drivers’ risky behavior or poor judgment, according to the FRA.

Ted Maloney usually drives past the same Ventura County rail crossing each day and hears the same familiar honking of the train engineer's horn.

But on Tuesday, Maloney said there was an urgency to the sound of the horn instead of the normal three honks before he heard screeching sounds and looked up to see a fireball.

"This guy was just laying on the horn," said Maloney. "I looked up and just a huge ball of fire. I didn't even see the truck because it was all engulfed in flames."

A Metrolink train leaving Camarillo and bound of Los Angeles had just slammed into a truck on the tracks, injuring nearly 30 people and toppling cars off the track.

Maloney and three farmworkers who were in a nearby berry field ran to help the victims, he said. He entered the overturned car and found a woman suffering from a severe head injury and other victims who were standing on the windows, which had become the floor of the car after it flipped over.

"Everything was just tossed around," said Maloney. "The seats were all in place, but there were laptops laying around, jackets, coats laying around."

Maloney made a bandage out of a sweater and tried to provide medical aid for the injured woman before paramedics arrived, he said. Four of the victims were hospitalized in critical condition with head, neck and back injuries after the Los Angeles-bound train's derailment between Camarillo and Oxnard.

The truck driver was detained after running from the crash site, police said. He was identified only as a 54-year-old man produce truck driver from Arizona who suffered minor injuries that were not related to the crash, police said.

Investigators are attempting to determine whether the truck was intentionally stopped on the tracks or whether the driver made a mistake, said Oxnard Assistant Police Chief Jason Benites.

Authorities said a crash energy management system likely limited the number of injuries and might have prevented fatalities. To help absorb the impact of collisions, Metrolink has been introducing the crash-resistant cars that have specialized bumpers and so-called "crush zones" designed to collapse in crashes and protect passenger cars.

Three of the four passenger cars were equipped with the technology.

A 20-year-old woman thought to be behind a series of Southern California tip jar heists has pleaded no contest to felony grand theft for stealing money from a Jamba Juice cash register, the Los Angeles County District Attorney announced Thursday.

Jessica Mary Shub entered the plea Wednesday. The thefts were over a two-month span last year while Shub worked at the juice store, prosecutors said.

LA County Superior Court Judge Mark Windham on Thursday sentenced Shub to one year in a live-in residential rehabilitation facility, three years of formal probation, and ordered the Beverly Hills resident to pay $1,500 in restitution.

Shub was arrested about two weeks ago after surveillance video showed her stealing tip money from the Brighton Coffee Shop in Beverly Hills, according to the Beverly Hills Police Department. She was charged with a misdemeanor for allegedly stealing from tip jars at various Beverly Hills and LA businesses, including a pizzeria and an ice cream parlor.

Because of Shub's no contest plea in the felony case, prosecutors dismissed those misdemeanor charges.

Sennett Devermont said the moment he saw flashing lights behind him after making an illegal right-on-red turn in Santa Monica, he started recording audio on his cellphone.

"In court, it’s my word against the officer’s and I believe I would lose every time," he said. "So with that audio, I was able to say to the court this is really what I sounded like, this is what I said, this is what he said."

Devermont, the mastermind behind a popular mobile app that lists local DUI checkpoints called "Mr. Checkpoint," posted the confrontation on YouTube and it received more than a million views.

That video also helped him secure a $70,000 judgment with the City of Santa Monica.

In the recording, Devermont is heard telling the officer that he has a right to refuse a field sobriety test.

"Do I have to do this?" he asked the officer.

"Yes, you do," the officer responded.

"By law?" Devermont continued.

"Yes you do," the officer repeated.

"I don’t think I do," Devermont replied.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California says Devermont had a First Amendment right to refuse the field sobriety test, but adds that an officer can still make an arrest if there’s reasonable suspicion of drunken driving.

In this case, though, a judge did not believe the officer had that.

In court documents, U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson said it is his belief that the officer was "antagonistic" and that Devermont had "simply and calmly" asserted his right not to perform any field sobriety test.

"Where the hell did you learn that from?" the officer is heard saying in the recording.

Devermont responded "That’s the law, officer."

• Read the judge's full decision

Devermont said he had studied much about DUI law in the state of California ever since he started his Mr. Checkpoint app nearly five years ago.

"I imagine this is something that happens quite a few times but it’s not actually captured on a recording," said ACLU Staff Attorney Jessica Price.

Upon reading up on the case, Price applauded Devermont for having the foresight to start recording with his phone.

"Here, the officer said the speech was slurred and that the plaintiff was being antagonistic," she said. "But by reviewing the recording, the judge was able to make his own assessment that the plaintiff’s speech was in fact not slurred, and that if anyone was being antagonistic in this encounter, it was the officer."

Devermont spent a night in the Santa Monica jail and a blood test confirmed he had not been drinking. He filed a lawsuit against the city and it took three years before it was settled.

The ACLU said a phone can be a powerful tool. In Devermont’s case, even the judge believed the officer did not have the reasonable suspicion to arrest him and that it was “merely for retaliation” against him.

"Certainly this night the footage was worth $70,000," Devermont said, adding that he believes everyone should take the moment to record their interaction with police for any reason.

Neither the Santa Monica Police Department or anyone from the City of Santa Monica returned NBC4’s request for comment.

A police investigation closed Pacific Coast Highway Friday morning in Santa Monica.

Details regarding the fatality investigation were not immediately available. Aerial video showed investigators at the base of a bluff next to PCH on the northbound side of the freeway.

The road was closed in both directions in the 1200 block of PCH early Friday, but the southbound lanes reopened at about 6:30 a.m. The northbound lanes reopened later Friday morning.

School police have arrested a student after he was caught on cellphone video beating up a freshman at a San Diego high school.

The victim’s family says he is being bullied because he is gay.

The video appears to show a freshman student walking around an outside corner of Morse High School last Thursday at lunch.

He is confronted by another student in a red t-shirt who starts yelling at him. That teenager stars punching the freshman, hitting at least 10 times in the face.

When the victim starts running away, the other student chases him, grabs him and punches him to the ground.

Though they did not want to do an interview with NBC 7 Wednesday, the victim’s family has expressed frustration with how the school handled the incident. According to them, the school did nothing to reprimand the alleged bully until two days after the incident.

The San Diego Unified School District said, "We can confirm that after the video surfaced, it was turned over to School Police for a full investigation and that, yes, a police report was filed with school police. The suspect was arrested and released to his parents."

That arrest took place on Monday.

The family says their son has gotten multiple threats in the past but the school did not do anything about it. They say the student’s punishment is too little, too late.

NBC 7 asked the district what the protocol is for incidents like this, but they have not gotten back to us yet.

Late Wednesday, the district sent this statement:

“The San Diego Unified School District is firmly and deeply committed to creating safe and inclusive learning environments for all of our students and employees. We immediately engage in any claim or report of bullying or harassment of any individual in our school community, including those who are members of the LGBT community. The isolated event at Morse High School was immediately and thoroughly investigated and appropriate disciplinary measures have been taken. All parties involved have an opportunity to learn important lessons about tolerance and compassion.”

A measure passed by voters last November that reduced crimes from felonies to misdemeanors also resulted in the elimination of DNA collection.

Proposition 47 apparently ended up reducing the number of DNA samples collected from suspects, which law enforcement and government agencies use to find suspects in violent crimes such as rape and murder.

Because the proposition lowered many non-violent crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, these now lower-rung criminals are not being required to submit the same samples they would have before.

With less DNA in the system, investigators say it makes it harder to solve older crimes and just because a criminal was caught for petty theft, doesn't necessarily mean they haven't or wont commit a violent crime.

The proposed solution is corrective legislation allowing DNA collection from everyone convicted of crimes lowered to misdemeanors by Prop 47.

But criminal defense attorney Marc Carlos said it's not as simple as just amending the previous law.

"The problem is that the voters voted on this initiative and this initiative only, the way it was written, so it's going to be difficult...without having a full vote once again," Carlos said.

Pam Lewis who owns Allen's Flowers thinks the DNA testing is a good idea and allows law enforcement to keep track of violent criminals.

"I do believe that even if it's a misdemeanor or petty theft that, you know, it's safer to be tracked," Lewis said.

But down the block, Jeremy Price feels differently.

"There's already enough infringement on our privacy and our personalities in general," Price said. "I don't think that we need to invite more."

Carlos said the jails are dangerous for those inside those who commit petty thefts, beer runs and low-grade drug offenses are better off outside the jail walls.

"I think, though, what the public needs to be aware of is that they're not talking about violent people who now are being tested for DNA," Carlos said. "This are essentially non-violent offenders."

The other question pending in the courts is whether the 225,000 samples already in the state database can be used to solve past crimes.

Homes were evacuated in a city of Industry neighborhood after a stolen vehicle driver involved in an injury crash Friday morning fled into a house.

The driver was evading deputies before the crash at the intersection of Peck and Rooks road. One person was hospitalized after the crash. Details regarding the victim's condition were not immediately available.

The driver ran into a nearby residential area and entered a home. There are no reports that anyone else was inside the residence.

The man surrendered to deputies at about 9 a.m.

New expansion plans for Google headquarters, known as the Googleplex, has the city of Mountain View in a tough position as city leaders try to accommodate their biggest corporate taxpayer as well as non-Google residents who feel the tech giant is swallowing their town.

“I think most of us in Mountain View are concerned about where are we going to house the employees that work there, the new employees. How will they get to work given the traffic bottlenecks that already exist?” asked Mountain View councilman Lenny Siegel.

Reportedly, the new plans highlight a campus focused on walking or biking to work, which means one thing to Siegel: Mountain View must build new housing.

“We’re expecting as we put housing in north Bayshore and near north Bayshore that we’ll reduce the amount of miles traveled by commuters,” he said.

A mobile home park in the shadow of Google headquarters is also in the cross hairs.

“There is a mobile home park in north Bayshore, about 360 units and a growing number of Google employees are moving in there,” he said. “Now it’s unfortunately displacing some of the residents, they’ve been bought out basically.”

Gregory Legg, who lives in Mountain View said many of his neighbors are Google employees and they’re doing wonders for property values

“It’s actually bringing it up, the property values, which is good. It’s real good,” Legg said. “I mean, before, it was pretty low. And now it’s brought it up quite a bit.”

But with the higher prices, Rosemary Dozie Antoine said she will probably have to move.

“We would like to get out of here because everything’s too expensive for what I do,” she said. “And for what my husband does. So we need to kinda’ need to get out of here.”

The higher real estate is benefiting some, but pushing out others.

“It’s the housing and transportation issues that make me question the value of all this high-tech growth,” she said.

Siegel said opening up Moffett Field for a type of park-and-ride plan that would help alleviate street congestion could be in the works. But his main focus is discussing new housing developments around Google, something the council said no to last year.
 

A young woman who says she tried to help a Massachusetts teen before his 2014 suicide now faces manslaughter charges after text messages allegedly revealed that she encouraged him to take his own life.

Court documents from New Bedford court outline a deeper look into the death of 18-year-old Conrad Roy, a student from Fairhaven and Mattapoisett.

In July of 2014, Fairhaven Police found Roy's body in his car parked behind a store. They believe he committed suicide by means of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Now, 18-year-old Michelle Carter of Plainville is facing involuntary manslaughter charges, having been indicted as a youthful offender.

After Roy's body was found, according to documents, police accessed his cell phone. There, they found thousands of text messages between Roy and Carter.

"Michelle not only encouraged Conrad to take his own life, she questioned him repeatedly as to when and why he hadn't done it yet, right up to the point of when his final text was sent to her on Saturday evening, July 12, 2014," police wrote after reviewing the messages.

The new charges have reopened old wounds for the Roy family.

"All I can think of is his smiling face," said Conrad's grandmother, Janice Roy. "He used to come play with his cousins on the beach."

Police also allege Carter misled friends and Roy's family members when he was missing.

The documents say that in other texts following his death, she told friends she heard him killing himself over the phone.

Police say Roy had told Carter he was scared to leave his family, but that Carter encouraged him to commit suicide.

"When he actually started to carry out the act, he got scared again and exited his truck," read the court documents. "But instead of telling him to stay out of the truck and turn off the generator Carter told him to 'get back in.'"

The court documents also show that Roy confided in Carter, saying, "I feel like I'm only staying alive for other people, not myself." He also reportedly said, "There's nothing anyone can do for me that's gonna make me wanna live."

Carter's attorney says his client is not a killer.

Roy's Memorial Mass will be celebrated on Saturday at 11 a.m. at St. Anthony's Church, Mattapoisett. Visiting hours will be held on Friday from 4-8 PM at the Saunders-Dwyer Mattapoisett Home for Funerals, 50 County Rd., Route 6, Mattapoisett. In lieu of flowers, remembrances may be made to the Captain Conrad H. Roy III Scholarship Fund, c/o Northeast Maritime Institute, 32 Washington St., Fairhaven, MA 02719. For directions and guestbook, please visit www.saundersdwyer.com.

A Long Island man allegedly used a wooden figure in a hooded sweatshirt to drive solo in the Long Island Expressway's HOV lane because, he told officers, he was late to his new job, police said.

A Suffolk County Highway Patrol officer noticed the fake passenger when he pulled the man over for speeding at 77 mph at 6:30 a.m. on Friday in Dix Hills.

A photo of the crudely made dummy shows a wooden board with a block-shaped, wooden head wearing a hooded sweatshirt.

"I was trying not to laugh at the guy because I thought it was quite silly," said officer Jonathan Abrams. 

Abrams said for a moment, he actually thought it was a real person.

"The silhouette was realistic enough," he said. "You see people with hoods up, sleeping in the front seat all the time." 

The driver, James Campbell, told NBC 4 New York the officer seemed to have a sense of humor about it.

"He said, 'Passenger, can I see some ID?' And I said, 'Officer, I don't think so,'" said Campbell, chuckling. 

Campbell told the officer that he was driving to a new job and didn't want to be late.

"He said he started a new job and he couldn't afford to be late to his new job, so traveling through the HOV lane allowed him to get there a little bit faster," said Abrams. 

He was issued summonses for speeding and occupancy violation.

Campbell didn't seem deterred. He pulled up to his home Friday evening after work with the dummy still in the front seat, saying he'd been using it for months. 

He said, "He's got a sister down in the basement and on special occasions, I bring her out and she wears a tutu." 

It’s been so cold in New England that even the ocean waves are freezing.

A Nantucket-based photographer and surfer captured images of waves with the consistency of a 7-Eleven Slurpee hitting the coast of Nantucket, in Massachusetts, on Friday, Feb. 20.

“The wind was howling from the southwest which would typically make rough or choppy conditions not so good for surfing, but since the surface of the sea was frozen slush the wind did not change the shape,” Jonathan Nimerfroh said in an email to New England Cable News. “What resulted was perfect, dreamy, slush waves.”

The temperature was a high of 19 degrees that day, according to Nimerfroh, and the waves were around 2 feet high.

When Nimerfroh went back the beach on Saturday to take more photos of slurpee waves, it was even colder. The water had a thin sheet of ice over it and there were no waves at all.

Normally, water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, so it’s not unusual for the harbor to freeze.

New England has experienced outsized snowfall and cold this winter. Boston has received 102 inches of snow, just 5.6 inches shy of the snowiest winter on record, according to the National Weather Service.

Another storm is expected to hit this weekend, dumping 6 inches in some areas. It won't take much to shatter the record.
 

Some land their dream job just weeks after graduation, but for Barbara Beskind, 91, it took several decades.

Beskind finally fulfilled her longtime dream of becoming a tech designer when she was hired at a top design firm in Silicon Valley two years ago.

"As a 10-year-old I wanted to be an inventor,'' Beskind told NBC's "Today show. "I've arrived. But it took me about 80 years."

She had a knack for design at an early age, making a hobby horse out of old tires during the Great Depression when she was just ten years old.

But she was discouraged to pursue a career in design by her high school guidance counselor who told her engineering schools don't accept females. So she decided to join the U.S. Army, where she served as an occupational therapist, while also writing books and learning to paint," she told "Today."

Two years ago she read about IDEO, known for designing the first mouse for Apple and other devices, and decided to apply for a vacant position. 

"Our culture is telling us, aging equals decline,'' IDEO associate partner Gretchen Addi told "Today". "And Barbara is very solidly standing there and saying, you know, 'I'm gonna call you on that.'''

Beskind focuses on projects related to aging. She has designed what she has dubbed a "trekker,'' a modified version of a walker, which is being developed into a prototype by IDEO.

She said coming to work every Thursday makes her "feel 30 years younger."

"Age is not a barrier to performance," she told "Today."  "Live life as an adventure, and expect change and endorse it, embrace it."

A man was killed in an officer-involved shooting near the headquarters of the Santa Ana Police Department Friday morning, authorities said.

Three officers searching for a particular car and a wanted person in Santa Ana's Civic Center were involved in the fatal shooting, two in a marked police car, one in an unmarked car, according to Santa Ana Police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna.

Officers approached the the car, a white Dodge Charger, near the intersection of Third and Santa Ana streets at about 10 a.m., Bertagna said.

The man died in the shooting, which Bertagna believed took place outside, not in, the Charger. The officers were unharmed, said Bertagna who initially told NBC4 that two officers were involved.

It was not immediately clear whether the man had a weapon.

Santa Ana Police Headquarters and the Santa Ana Jail are about four blocks north of the site of the shooting, in the city's Civic Center area.

Refresh this page for updates on this developing story.

A man was being held on charges of assault with a deadly weapon in connection with the death of his 67-year-old woman who was trying to break up a fight between her daughter and the suspect, deputies said.

Amir Bass, 25, allegedly hit Martina Olivaece with his car after getting into an argument with her daughter in the 13300 block of Doty Avenue at 8:35 p.m, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

The suspect is alleged to have fled the scene after the incident. He and his vehicle were located by Hawthorne Police Department personnel shortly after and taken into custody, authorities said.

The victim’s 32 year-old daughter suffered minor injuries during the incident and was taken to a hospital to for treatment, deputies said.

Deputies said the incident began with an argument, and witnesses told NBC4 that the mother came into the street to break up the fight.

"It was just an argument about where's my money at?" said Joseph Lagat, a nurse who tried to offer CPR for the woman when he found she had no pulse.

The woman's family told him not to touch their mother, he said.

Deputies initially said Bass was booked into jail on suspicion of murder, but changed the charge, pending further investigation.

Virginia mom of three Brooke Taheri opted to spend her Valentine’s Day working on her taxes and didn't expect the holiday to get any less romantic.

Then she discovered her identity had been stolen.

“You get that sinking feeling in your stomach,” said Taheri, 37, of Fairfax County, describing the moment she realized something was wrong.

Tax-related identity theft is a growing concern, according to the Internal Revenue Service, which named it as one of its “dirty dozen” tax scams of 2015.

“Preventing and detecting identity theft and refund fraud remains a top priority for the IRS," the government agency said in a statement. "We have added and strengthened protections in our systems, and we continue to make important progress in stoping identity theft and other fradulent refunds."

Last year, the IRS initiated 1,063 identity theft-related investigations and the Federal Trade Commission reported receiving 109,063 complaints about tax-related identity theft, according to the IRS website.

Taheri found out she was a victim when she tried to e-file her taxes and got a notice saying the IRS already received her forms.

“I was livid and completely frustrated,” Taheri said.

Yet submitting your tax return is the only way to uncover the distressing news before the tax season's deadline hits.

Credit card companies continually monitor customers’ behavior, making it easier for them to pick up on any unusual activity. The IRS, however, only connects with taxpayers once a year. Fraudsters typically file early, beating taxpayers to the punch and making it difficult for the IRS to detect discrepancies against employers’ information, which the government agency receives in late spring.

• READ MORE: The IRS' “Taxpayer Guide to Identity Theft”

Since many Americans have yet to file their returns this tax season, it is too early to tell how many others are victims of tax-related identity theft although the majority should not be affected.

About 1.5 million taxpayers received Identity Protection PINs, a six-digit unique number, by the IRS last year as part of a pilot program. The agency provided them with the extra security measure to all identity theft victims, including those whose data was compromised in schemes unrelated to their taxes.

• Get an Identity Protection Pin

The IRS also offered the PINs to another 1.7 million taxpayers whose accounts signaled they could be victims.

Filing early is one recommendation, but that didn’t prevent Taheri from experiencing a “very labor intensive” aftermath.

“Thus far I’ve spent over four hours on music hold with different federal and local government agencies and then once I talk to people it’s been another hour and a half,” she said.

Taheri filed a police report, contacted the IRS and the FTC, and checked with the Social Security Administration and other agencies to determine if her information had been used illegally, she said. And she still had to file her taxes, but now she must submit a paper copy along with an identity theft affidavit so the IRS can conduct its investigation, she said.

Updating your passwords and usernames regularly, and monitoring your credit report are a few other steps taxpayers should take to avoid identity theft, according to resources available on the FTC and IRS websites. Another suggestion: Don’t give your personal information when it is not required of you or through unsecure channels.

Taheri, who works in finance, admonished herself for failing to set up identity theft protection earlier.  She said she has now signed up for it. Taheri is also keeping a close eye on her credit reports and planning how she’ll avoid this in the future.

“As soon as I get my W-2s and tax information, I will be filing as early as I physically can,” she said. “I will be the first to file.”

And after a headache-filled Valentine's day, Taheri — who wasn't expecting a big hoopla — was finally able to celebrate with her family.

"By the time I got off all the phone calls, I think we got carry-out."

Hoping to inspire more women to male-dominated fields of science, math and tech, "Wonder Women Tech" kicks off a first-of-its-kind conference in Los Angeles this weekend.

While there are many women in science, math and tech, they are leaving in large numbers, according to a Harvard Business Review report.

"We crack from that pressure of being in a man's world and not being understood the way that we would like to be understood," said Lisa Mae Brunson, the founder of Wonder Women Tech. "We can feel like this is too much for us."

As part of the meeting, held at The Hangar in Playa Vista, women and girls will get hands-on training in a 36-hour "Hackathon."

At the event, participants, including graphic designers, web developers, filmmakers and technologists, will compete in a number of challenges. Women and girls will develop projects aimed to raise awareness and solve challenges.

Entrepreneur Shannon Hematian said women need to make their voices heard because they are also consumers.

"We need to be on the other side, deciding what to make for women," Hematian said.

Noramay Cadena, an aerospace engineer, co-founded Latinas in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) to get more Latinas into the field.

She recently asked her boss to make small changes that will make the workplace more welcoming for women.

"It takes a small critical mass to really create enough comfort to then say, 'OK, guys now let's slow down and let's really talk about the environment we have here,'" she said.

She knows what it's like being in a job where most of her colleagues are men.

"You find it difficult to speak up because you don't want to be 'that woman,'" she said.

Police are searching for three robbery suspects in Downey Friday afternoon, after they evaded investigators during an earlier search.

At lease one of the suspects was believed to be barricaded inside a house on Brunache Street beginning around 1 p.m., but investigators said the home was empty when it was searched around 5:30 p.m.

Police later said they were looking for three suspects, all of whom were wearing black, hooded sweatshirts at the time of the robbery.

Neighbors told NBC4 the situation included a home invasion, but investigators did not immediately confirm and it is unknkown if anyone aside from the suspect was thought to be in the house.

Two nearby schools were briefly placed on lockdown earlier in the afternoon.

Around 2 p.m., Old River Elementary School at 11995 Old River School Road confirmed that it was keeping students inside classrooms because of the unspecified situation. In a tweet, the school said all students were safe.

Nearby Stauffer Middle School also confirmed by Twitter that it was on lockdown because of the situation.

At 2:30 p.m., Downey Unified School District's director of student services said the schools were no longer on lockdown and parents were allowed to pick up their students.

The police activity was isolated to a home several blocks away from the schools, Dr. Robert Jagielski said.

This is a developing story. Refresh for updates.

A storm out of the Pacific Northwest was headed toward Southern California Friday, packing the potential to generate showers and snow as low as 3,500 feet throughout the weekend.

Hazardous driving conditions are possible in mountain areas and along the 5 and 14 freeways north of Los Angeles, where drivers might encounter blowing snow and icy roads.

In foothill communities, thunderstorms might trigger debris flows. The concern is particularly high in areas below recent brush fire burn areas, such as Glendora in the San Gabriel Valley.

The system will move into Southern California late Friday and continue to drop rain and snow through Monday, according to the National Weather Service.

"There will be periods of rain all weekend long," said NBC4 forecaster Crystal Egger. "We're looking at the possibility of thunderstorms Saturday and Sunday."

Cloud cover will increase Friday afternoon with scattered showers developing in mountain areas.

The NWS issued a winter storm watch for the San Gabriel Mountains from Saturday afternoon through Monday afternoon because of the possibility of snow, blowing snow, lightning and poor visibility -- a quarter-mile or less. The advisory indicated between 8 and 16 inches snow could accumulate above 5,500 feet by Monday morning.

Temperatures will remain mainly in the 60s for several days, with a slight warming trend beginning Thursday in some communities.