Southern California's October cooldown slowly begins as heat wave's end is in sight

There's light at the end of the tunnel for Southern California's atypical October heat wave as temperatures will begin to drop — albeit slowly — on Wednesday and into the rest of the work week.

"I can finally say these five words: 'Cooldown is on the way'," said CBS LA Meteorologist Amber Lee. 

That cooldown won't arrive in a large way on Wednesday, but instead slowly over the next few days. On Wednesday, temperatures will still remain abnormally high, although fewer records are expected to fall than in days past.

"The cooling will not be enough to eliminate the heat risk, with mostly 90s across the coasts and 98 to 105 in the valleys," a National Weather Service bulletin said.

While Wednesday's cooldown won't be significant, it'll likely be enough to end a streak in downtown Los Angeles. Tuesday was the fifth consecutive day of 100-degree temperatures recorded downtown, the longest such streak since 1963. According to the NWS, downtown LA's high on Wednesday was 98.

Cooling is likely to continue on Thursday by about 2 to 4 degrees, before Friday's more noticeable 4 to 8 degree drop, the NWS said.

The weekend will see a more dramatic switch, as temperatures will become seasonally below average by Sunday. Remnants of Hurricane Rachel could bring rain to the region by the start of next week, early forecasts indicate.