Cold Snap to Last Through Weekend

Southern California will be slow to warm up this weekend after the biting cold that prompted Friday night freeze alerts, filled Skid Row missions to capacity and threatened to damage crops.

The National Weather Service warned that the extreme dryness of the “very cold” air mass lingering over the Southland would lead to “rapid and significant cooling” of all areas overnight with temperatures dropping into the low or mid-20s in most wind-sheltered agricultural areas.

“Temperatures will be below freezing in many parts of the Los Angeles Basin Saturday morning,” weather service forecaster Bob Grebe said.

He got no argument from meteorologist Cary Schudy of the private San Francisco-based Earth Environment Service. Schudy said it was going to be “near record-breaking cold” both Friday night and tonight with the expected warming trend hardly noticeable until late Sunday.

He blamed the cold wave on a very strong low-pressure area over the Great Basin and Southwest deserts as well as a high-pressure system over the Pacific Northwest. The winds just moved from high to low, he said, drawing arctic air all the way to the Mexican border.

As they had been on Thursday, all downtown Los Angeles missions were filled to capacity with homeless people on Friday night.

“They’re banging on the door at night,” said John Young at the Union Rescue Mission. “There’s been a lot of different agencies calling us (seeking to place people). All I tell them is they can try.”

The Justiceville organization, the Brotherhood Crusade and City Councilman Gilbert Lindsay’s office said Friday evening they had arranged to provide shelter for about 100 people at the Ward A.M.E. Church at 1177 West 25th St. And they issued a challenge to other churches to do the same.

The Salvation Army said it would add a second mobile soup kitchen to patrol Skid Row areas for the duration of the cold snap. Mayor Tom Bradley joined officials of the Salvation Army and the Los Angeles City Fire Department in a plea for donations of blankets to be distributed from those vehicles. Donors can leave them at any city fire station, they said.

“The Salvation Army realizes there are tremendous needs on the street,” said Maj. Al Van Cleef of that organization. “We feel we need to do something to provide warmth as well as nourishment during these difficult cold hours.”

Bradley said liability problems made it impossible to open city buildings to the homeless at night. Earlier, Councilman Ernani Bernardi suggested that the Parker Center auditorium and other facilities be made available to the homeless during the cold spell.

Southern California Gas Co. customers set an apparent all-time record by burning an estimated 4.9 billion cubic feet of natural gas Friday. “That’s the highest it’s ever been,” said company spokesman Rich Puz.

“A week from now, when the weather is warmer,” Puz added, “people will wonder why their gas bills are so high. They forget how cold it’s been. We just like to advise people to expect higher-than-normal gas bills.”

A freeze warning was issued Friday night for all Southern California coastal valleys, intermediate valleys and coastal areas in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.

Gusty Winds Forecast

In addition, the forecast was for north and northeast winds 15 to 30 m.p.h. at times, with locally stronger gusts near the canyons. Travelers advisories were issued for the deserts and mountains, where strong winds were expected.

Southern California mountains will be “extremely cold,” the weather service said, with the mercury dropping to zero at higher elevations overnight and resort area high temperatures of only 24 to 34 degrees today. On Sunday, they will rise to 38.

The downtown Los Angeles high on Friday was 56 degrees, after an overnight low of 42. The Civic Center high should be near 60 today and in the 60s on Sunday.

Friday’s high relative humidity was 20%. The low reading was 11%.

Growers were warned to protect citrus, avocados, strawberries and other tender trees and plants from the bitter overnight cold. There was little crop damage reported after the chilly weather of the night before, however.

Most Escape Trouble

John Manning of the Los Angeles County agricultural commissioner’s office said it appeared that most growers in this county escaped serious trouble, even though there were unofficial reports of temperatures as low as 24 degrees in the Pomona area.

The big concern, Manning said, was for strawberries, whose blooms and small fruit are easy prey to frost. Many growers, according to Manning, saved their crops by running sprinklers, which cover the plants with comparatively warm water.

In Riverside County, county agricultural biologist John Snyder said there were some reports of minor damage to the bell pepper crop in the Coachella Valley and an expectation of some harm to the potato crop in the Hemet area.

In Orange County, Deputy Agricultural Commissioner Wayne Appel said there might have been some damage to strawberries as well as to wholesale nursery stock in the Carbon Canyon area.

Officials in all three counties noted that Friday night was expected to be even colder.

‘Could Be Critical’

“That could be critical,” Snyder said. “That could involve citrus, where there’s much still to be harvested.”

He predicted that growers would be busy with wind machines to keep the frost from settling.

With San Diego County temperatures expected to fall to 34 degrees, growers there were warned for the first time in many years to pick what crops they could--especially avocados. Many of them did.

San Diego tied the record set in 1888 for the lowest maximum temperature reading on a Jan. 16 with a chilly high of 53 degrees at Lindbergh Field. The anticipated overnight low of 34 would also tie the record set in 1888 for the lowest reading recorded on a Jan. 17.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Kathy Bozanich in San Diego County and Lily Eng in Orange County.