The day’s weather news isn’t very good for L.A.

“A fast-moving Arctic storm swung into Los Angeles County early Wednesday and was expected to bring powerful gusts later in the day,” the Los Angeles Times writes. Indeed, the National Weather Service radar image (we’re posting a screen-grab) is pretty ominous-looking.

But the good weather-related news in California, as the Times and NPR’s Ina Jaffe report, is that a very wet December has left behind about “twice the amount of water considered normal for this time of year” in the snowpack high up in the Sierras. So come spring, a lot of water should come down from the mountains into the reservoirs of drought-plagued Southern California:

The snow and storms have taken a toll on some of the state’s roads, though, as our friends at Southern California Public Radio report. Highway 330, the main road to the Big Bear ski resort, is closed because a large section has collapsed. There’s a photo gallery about that here. Copyright 2010 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.