Yes, Those Rainy Days Can Get You Down

Gray skies, rain and shorter days are good news for roofers and tanning salons, but bad news for your psyche.

“People become less active, hibernate in their houses, and overeat,” said Dr. David A. Sack, a psychiatrist who is medical director at Los Altos Hospital in Long Beach.

Sack, who while a researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md., studied how indoor and outdoor light affects behavior, believes that the end of summer may be more traumatic for Southern Californians than for people in other parts of the country.

“I suspect that a lot of people affected by seasonal depression try to move where the days are milder and more sunny--and where it’s less cold,” Sack said Thursday.

“Though the weather in the winter is more fabulous in L.A. than in Minnesota, that doesn’t make that much difference to the people who’re here. They’re a self-selected group of people who’re more affected by seasonal changes, people who miss the light more than others.”

Thursday offered a partial respite from fall’s gloom, with early morning showers and clouds giving way in the afternoon to clear skies because the low pressure that had been causing the rains moved inland, said Mike Smith, a meteorologist with WeatherData, which provides forecasts to The Times.

“Friday, it looks like it’s going to be a pretty nice day,” Smith said. Clouds this morning are expected to give way to sunny skies in the afternoon, according to the National Weather Service. Highs will be 72-77 and lows will be 52-62. Saturday will be much the same.

But the rains will probably return to the county Saturday night, Smith said, with cloudy skies and showers forecast for Sunday.

From swimsuit sellers to roofers, county businessmen said they’ve already noticed changes in people’s behavior because of the arrival of the rainy season.

“We’re swamped,” said Jim Ford, production manager for Classic Roofing in Santa Ana. “This is our busiest time of the year. We’ve got a six-week backlog.”

Ford said people wait until the fall to have work done on leaking roofs because “in Southern California, it’s party time in the summer. People just think about vacations, the beach and being outside.

“In the winter, they’re home for the first time in a long time and they say: ‘Hey, I’d better check into that roof that was leaking last year. I’ll get it fixed this year.’ ”

Joe Rowlett, sales manager for Petronella Roofing in Sunset Beach, said: “In summer, we do a lot of estimates, but we don’t get many buyers. People wait till it starts raining. A roof then becomes a necessity, not a luxury.”

Rainy days have also brought people back to the county’s tanning salons. “ A couple of people who stopped (coming) over the summer have come back because they said they can’t lay out in the sun anymore,” said Colette Lambert of Sun Street Tanning Center in Santa Ana.

“Our regulars come in from three to five times a week,” Lambert said. These 20-minute sessions in ultraviolet lit booths cost $6 each, but most people buy “monthly packages” costing $55, Lambert said. “They can come every day that way.”

John Tutunjian of Campus Cobbler on Campus Drive in Irvine said: “Business goes up when it rains because that’s when people find out that they have holes in their shoes.”

Tutunjian added: “People come in and want their shoes worked on right now, but I tell them they’ve got to leave them. . . . Soles take time.”

But gray skies have meant a 20% drop in business at Kiman Sunglasses in Garden Grove. “We only sell sunglasses, so this is our slowest time of the year,” store manager Shirley Lee said.

“Things start picking up toward the end of November when ski season starts, and people start buying sunglasses for the slopes.”