Hail Delights Some, Leaves Others Cold

Hail pelted Huntington Beach early Wednesday, causing traffic accidents, forcing a 1 1/2-mile closure of Pacific Coast Highway for nearly two hours and coating houses, cars and lawns with four inches of the cold, white substance that many residents mistook for snow.

The unusual ice storm forced police to close a section of Pacific Coast Highway between Newland and Brookhurst streets to commuter traffic from 7 to 8:50 a.m., after eight accidents occurred there within just a few minutes. A Costa Mesa man was hospitalized after one of the accidents with severe cuts on his face.

Police also closed the Santa Ana River Bridge, a 300-yard span connecting Huntington Beach with Newport Beach, for 1 1/2 hours Wednesday morning because a three-inch accumulation of hail made driving hazardous, Newport Beach police said.

“It was a mess,” said Newport Beach Sgt. Todd Wilkinson, who watched four accidents along a “very slippery” 2 1/2-mile stretch of road near Newland as he drove to work.

“I could observe at least four cars in various stages of traffic accidents--one into a tree, one into a curb, one into a block wall and people sliding into stop signs,” he said.

In the mountains to the east, the weather hampered air and ground searches for an Orange County couple who disappeared in a light plane Monday.

Pilot John Morrow and his wife, Patricia, of Yorba Linda are both in their 70s, according to authorities. They took off in their single-engine Cessna at noon Monday in Boulder City, Nev., but failed to arrive at Fullerton Airport two hours later as scheduled, Civil Air Patrol Lt. Col. Ernie Pearson said.

On Wednesday, three ground rescue teams and four planes combed an area stretching from a point just east of Mt. Baldy in the San Gabriel Mountains to Banning Pass in San Bernardino County. Pearson said something resembling an aircraft had been detected on radar Monday in the area being searched.

“I don’t know what may have happened,” Pearson, said. “(The Morrows) may have encountered weather problems.”

In Huntington Beach, the ice that was a nuisance for commuters was a source of recreation for others. One Huntington Beach resident was seen skiing on the closed portion of Pacific Coast Highway about 8 a.m. And at La Jolla Circle, one block east of the highway, a crowd of adults and children frolicked in the “snow,” kicking it and throwing snowballs.

Though Huntington Beach was the hardest hit, the pellets of ice fell in a crazy quilt pattern all around Orange County.

Costa Mesa got several inches about 6 a.m., enough to turn mailboxes, cars and streets an icy white, Police Lt. Dave Brooks reported. San Clemente, Garden Grove and Cypress also reported hail, but Los Alamitos residents got a thunderstorm and Laguna Beach just got rain.

A National Weather Service spokeswoman called the weather pattern more typical of cold, winter storms in Northern and Central California than the Southland.

Since the weekend, a cold air mass from Canada has swept south, bringing with it moist, unstable air and thunderheads, weather service specialist Betty Reo said.

All day, many county residents debated whether what fell from the skies had been snow--or as one Huntington Beach police officer said, “a blizzard.”

But Reo was firm that the weather service had identified it as hail. She said that hail is formed when “super-cold air” within a thunderhead coalesces and ice literally falls from the cloud.

“It is not considered snow,” Reo said. “It’s frozen, like a pellet. It’s not a snowflake. It’s ice.”

Whatever it was, it is not expected to fall again soon, Reo said. She said the storm is moving on, with clear, warmer weather expected by Friday. There should be some clouds today, Reo said, but it should be mostly clear by tonight and fair on Friday. Highs today should be around 60 and lows should be in the 40s. By Friday, temperatures should be in the mid-60s to mid-70s for the highs with lows in the upper 40s.

In the only injury accident from Huntington Beach’s icy roads, Dan Hoover, 27, of Costa Mesa received severe facial cuts after his car slid out of control. He was taken to Fountain Valley Regional Hospital, where he was reported in stable condition.

Also in Costa Mesa, a boy throwing “hail balls” caused two cars to collide. Sgt. George Yezbick said the cars suffered moderate damage but no one was hurt. He said the boy was taken into custody after the incident.

For all the havoc the hail created on some county roads, it didn’t seem to have hurt farmers. James Harnett, the county’s chief deputy agriculture commissioner, said he had heard no reports of damage in the strawberry fields or anywhere else Wednesday.

For most people, the hail was a curiosity--a noise on the roof or a decorative icing on the lawn. Again and again, county residents said they were enjoying the cold and the view of snowcapped mountains nearby.

As he drove to San Diego on Tuesday, Fullerton Police Sgt. Bud Lathrop said he was delighted to find snow on Santa Ana Mountain, at about the 1,000-foot level. Lathrop said he took a picture of the mountain “as I sped by. Gee--it’s something to tell the grandkids about,” he recounted Wednesday.

At La Jolla Circle and Malibu Lane in Huntington Beach, Jim May scooped up a handful of slush, took careful aim and threw it across the street at his wife, Mary. He missed.

But May didn’t mind. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Not here,” said a fireman from Long Beach who drove south to see it.

And there was Randy Robison, who pulled up to a patch of the slush, brought out a large tray and began scooping it up. “Hey, I love the stuff. I’m taking it back to my father’s store so people can see it,” he said as he dumped a trayful into the back of his truck.

“Smile now. This is for Grandma,” Lily Prince coached her 3-year-old son Benjamin while a friend snapped pictures of them. There was a wide smile on Benjamin’s face as he ran through the hail scattered on the ground, kicking it with his tennis shoes.

There was also a wide smile on the faces of ski shop managers Wednesday. Ski rentals and sales have been unusually brisk for a weekday, several shop employees said.

“They see old Saddleback (Mountain) with snow on it and that really inspires them,” said Mike Anderson, floor manager of Pat’s Ski and Sport in Santa Ana.

At the California Ski Center in Anaheim, sales clerk Toni Dyrud reported that the shop usually rents two or three pairs of skis during the week but Wednesday had rented 15 pairs and fielded calls about rentals from 25 people.

“There was just a lot of snow, and it has really come down in the foothills. When it’s colder, people think about skiing,” she said.

Many skiers were planning ahead, said Officer Patti Reith of the California Highway Patrol’s Westminster office. She said she had fielded calls all morning from county residents who wanted to know if they needed chains in the mountains. (They do.)

“When the snow comes, the skiers come out. They all have to get off work during the week,” she said.

Nearly two feet of snow fell at the ski slopes on Mt. Baldy, which opened for the second time this season, and all three lifts were operating. The roads there were open, but chains were required. Similar conditions were in effect for other San Gabriel Mountains resort areas and around Big Bear in the San Bernardino Mountains.

In the Sierra, Dagget Pass had a total of 42 inches of snow on the ground, Echo Summit had 82, Soda Springs 54, Alpine Meadows 57, Heavenly Valley 48, Carson Pass 50 and Mammoth Mountain 63.

Most of Nevada remained blanketed with snow as the big storm hovered over it. There were numerous traffic accidents in Las Vegas, where a truck skidded into a support for a bridge under construction, knocking part of it down.

Interstate 5, which had been closed in the Grapevine area because of snow Tuesday night, reopened at 1:30 a.m., the CHP said. Nevertheless, icy road conditions prompted officers to escort groups of cars along that stretch throughout the day as snow continued to fall.

A search for another missing plane also continued Wednesday. It apparently was knocked from the sky by lightning off the Malibu coast Tuesday evening. Aboard the twin-engine Piper Seminole were instructor William Cody, 23, of Northridge, and Ed Grinstead, 25, of Texas.

The Coast Guard said Grinstead had purchased the plane last Friday and was on a familiarization flight with Cody.

Waterspouts and funnel clouds presented problems Wednesday in the San Diego area, where some small boats were overturned by the powerful, spiraling winds in San Diego Bay. Police reported damage to the windshield of a car driving along the Silver Strand near Imperial Beach.

Waterspout Warning

After the first waterspout was sighted about five miles off San Diego at 11:08 a.m., the National Weather Service issued a special warning to small-boat operators, noting that conditions were favorable for waterspouts the rest of the day.

Because of the possibility of rain squalls, with winds of 25 to 40 knots, forecasters advised boaters to keep close to shore.

Lightning was blamed for a fire that destroyed newspaper magnate Randolph Hearst’s $400,000 home near Cambria in the San Simeon area on Tuesday afternoon. Although many furnishings from the lower two stories were saved, a state fire investigator said a lack of water on Black Mountain forced firefighters to allow the four-story structure to burn to the ground.

Times staff writers Jack Jones, Leonard Greenwood, Bob Schwartz and Leonel Sanchez contributed to this story.