Cold Front Chills Cities, Frosts Mountains

Wintry weather embraced Orange County Tuesday as temperatures dropped below freezing in places, bringing snow in the mountains and rain and hail in some cities.

Temperatures are expected to rise slightly today to the low to mid-60s. Although some fog is expected along the coast, the forecast is for clear, sunny days. Nights are expected to remain clear and cold, from the mid-30s to the mid-40s, the National Weather Service said.

Thursday may be sunny and a little warmer, with highs in the mid- to upper 60s, the weather service said.

Snow on Saddleback Ridge, Orange County’s harbinger of cold weather, was visible for miles Tuesday. U. S. Forest Service spokesmen said the 2,000-foot snow level was the lowest in eight years.

“The last snowfall recorded that was this low was back in 1977,” said William Gevedon, a forest ranger stationed at El Cariso, just inside Riverside County, where the temperature rose to only 44 degrees at noon.

The low snow level left many of Orange County’s taller peaks, like the 5,687-foot Santiago and 5,496-foot Modjeska peaks, draped in white, where the storm dumped more than 3 inches of snow.

Hail the size of peas was reported in Irvine, Laguna Beach, Mission Viejo and other communities overnight.

Temperatures in Newport Beach, known more for its surfing beaches and sunny weather, barely reached 50 degrees after a day of heavy rain and reports of sleet. Half an inch of rain fell in Newport Beach during a 24-hour period.

Small-craft advisories were in force Tuesday, including Newport’s harbor area, which was cloudy with a 10-m.p.h. wind.

Inland, temperatures warmed up a bit, to 56 degrees in El Toro and 57 degrees in Santa Ana.

Chilly overnight temperatures caught many residents who had waited to the last moment to light gas pilots on heaters, a Southern California Gas Co. spokesman said.

“We were telling people that if they called this afternoon (Tuesday) we wouldn’t be able to turn them on until Friday,” spokesman Robert Hird said.

He said more than 3,462 telephone calls were received within two hours Tuesday, most for pilot turn-ons.

The California Highway Patrol reported fender benders throughout the county and an early morning injury accident about 9 a.m. that backed up traffic on the northbound lanes of the San Diego Freeway near Westminster Avenue for several miles.

In south Orange County, a driver skidded and got stuck along a muddy center divider, prompting a chain reaction on Interstate 5 near Avery Parkway in Mission Viejo.

Things turned from bad to worse as a patrol car driven by CHP Officer George Luce, 25, was rammed when Luce started to back up to help the driver.

When two other CHP patrol cars arrived, one motorist who had slowed to view the first crash sideswiped two other vehicles.

The driver of the second car, Clifford Daryl Brady, 33, of Rancho Cucamonga, apparently got excited and hit his brakes, then struck the center divider and the rear of Luce’s patrol car, a CHP spokesman said.

No roads were closed in Orange County due to flooding, but a crew from the California Department of Transportation spent the day clearing twigs and mud from a clogged culvert drain that flooded the No. 3 lane of the connector of the Laguna Freeway to the Santa Ana Freeway.

However, several access roads leading into the Cleveland National Forest and along the ridgeline were closed after motorists tried to travel in vehicles without snow chains.

Heavy rains that brought 1.33 inches Monday and almost another inch Tuesday in the mountains transformed rugged access roads from “dirt to slush,” said William Pidanick, a spokesman for the Forest Service.

Vehicles Got Stuck

Passenger vehicles, including four-wheel-drive trucks, slid off the North Main Divide, a major connector to Santiago Peak that runs north and south along the county’s main ridgeline, Pidanick said.

No injuries were reported. However, half a dozen vehicles without snow chains got stuck and needed tows.

Maple Springs Road off of Silverado Canyon and the North Main Divide have been closed indefinitely, Pidanick said.

Travelers’ advisories were still in effect for the Sierra Nevada, where the big storm dropped up to five feet of snow Monday. Motorists were also being cautioned in the Southern California mountain ranges above 2,500 feet and in the Owens Valley, Antelope Valley, Mojave Desert and Death Valley.

Damage From Waterspouts

In San Diego County, where the storm caused havoc for a second day Tuesday, a waterspout came in off the ocean at Encinitas at 6:45 a.m. to become a small tornado and rip the roof off a two-story home, dropping it on a parked car. Another roof was damaged, and the twister then damaged several acres of greenhouses.

Another waterspout went ashore at Oceanside about the same time, stripping the roof from an air-conditioning firm. There were no injuries in either episode.

It also snowed Tuesday in parts of downtown Riverside, which had not seen the stuff in 36 years. And it even snowed in Sun City.

Throughout the early morning hours, rooftops turned white and early risers were surprised. For example, in Moreno Valley, about seven miles east of Riverside, children and adults took to the streets at dawn, walloping friends and neighbors with snowballs and building snowmen.

All this, and winter doesn’t officially begin until Dec. 21.

Chains Required

North of San Bernardino, the Cajon Pass stretch of Interstate 15, where snow is not unusual, remained open but chains were recommended because more snow appeared likely. Chains were required in the San Bernardino Mountains anywhere above 2,500 feet, the California Highway Patrol said.

On the Grapevine stretch of Interstate 5 between Los Angeles and Bakersfield, two lanes in either direction were opened at dawn following a night in which the CHP and a snow-plow crew escorted motorists in groups of 100. Chains were required, however.

Angeles Crest Highway in the San Gabriel Mountains was closed at Islip Saddle.

With the first significant snowfall in the Southern California mountains, most ski-resort operators were ready to open for business.

Rain in Los Angeles

The storm had dropped .90 of an inch of rain on downtown Los Angeles by the time it departed for points east Tuesday morning. That brought the rainfall total for the season to 1.51 inches, the National Weather Service said.

Tuesday’s high at the Los Angeles Civic Center was 56 degrees. The overnight low was 42. Relative humidity ranged between 86% and 40%.

Fog was likely in many areas and forecasters warned of dew points in the upper 20s and lower 30s in northern and central Southern California agricultural areas. But citrus growers were advised that warm air was expected to move in rapidly, meaning that protection for fruit trees might not be necessary the rest of the week.

Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming all were getting heavy snowfall as the cold weather front headed across the central Rockies into the central Plains.

Two feet of snow was recorded by mid-morning at Utah’s Alta ski resort and in Arizona, north of the Grand Canyon.

Winter storm warnings and travelers’ advisories were issued for many areas of those states.

Summit Pass Closed

The Utah Highway Patrol had to close the Soldier Summit pass about 70 miles southeast of Salt Lake City after several trucks slid off the icy road.

At Flagstaff, Ariz., where 10 inches of snow fell in five hours, schools were closed but the winter storm warning was canceled as the front moved east. Heavy snow accumulations were expected in the northeastern part of the state.

Winemucca, Nev., had a record 8 degrees below zero Tuesday and Yakima, Wash., a record low of 7 degrees.

At Yosemite National Park, a helicopter carried supplies to a climber stranded about 500 feet below the summit of El Capitan after a blizzard dropped nearly three feet of snow at the park. The climber, who was not identified, had been scaling the 3,593-foot face of the big rock for 13 days. He reported he was short of food and was suffering from frostbite.

Authorities said they hoped he would be able to finish the climb on his own.

250 Hunters Stranded

Fifty to 75 elk hunters walked to safety Tuesday in Washington state’s Cascades, but as many as 250 others were believed stranded by up to four feet of snow that fell on the range. Army helicopters from Ft. Lewis were searching the eastern slopes.

The Yakima County sheriff’s office said a woman, Ida Winston, 60, was found dead of apparent carbon-monoxide poisoning in the pickup truck in which she and her husband were believed to have kept the engine running for warmth. Her husband, William, 60, was airlifted to Yakima Memorial Hospital, where he was reported in critical but stable condition.

In Placer County about 20 miles northeast of Auburn, searchers reached the wreckage of a single-engine plane that had been spotted from the air after being missing since Saturday with three members of a Martinez family aboard. There apparently were no survivors.

Placer County Sheriff’s Sgt. Keven Besana said the body of a man was found, but it was not immediately identified. He said the other two passengers were presumed to have been thrown clear and buried in snow piled five to six feet deep.

As skies cleared over the Tahoe Basin, at least four missing people were accounted for. Hunters Robert Brown, 37, and Gary Marks, 36, were found unhurt Monday night after being reported overdue in the Verdi area west of Reno. Hikers Sammy Simpson, 27, and Paul Capozzi, 21, were discovered safe early Tuesday. Simpson and Capozzi had taken winter survival training and were well-equipped, a Washoe County sheriff’s spokesman said.

Times staff writers Gordon Grant in San Juan Capistrano and Louis Sahagun in Riverside contributed to this story.