Warmer Trend Due to Defrost San Diego Chill

San Diego County temperatures will rise considerably beginning today, signaling an end to the near-record cold weather that has frosted the area for the past several days, the National Weather Service said Saturday.

The high temperatures today will range from 56 to 64 degrees and from 60 to 68 Monday, forecaster Wally Cegiel said. Skies will be sunny in all areas through midday Monday. Tonight, low temperatures will range from 41 to 46 along the shoreline and coastal strip and from 30 to 38 inland.

While San Diego temperatures remained above record levels on Saturday, the low in Los Angeles Saturday hit 35 degrees, tying the city’s record low for the date on Dec. 26, 1881. The temperatures in the Los Angeles area set off a flurry of minor traffic accidents on icy roads, sent homeless into shelters, and froze water pipes.

For most of Southern California, a freeze warning was issued for overnight Saturday for fruit and vegetable growers. In San Diego County, inland temperatures at coldest locations were predicted to dip into the mid-20s; that would be about 3 degrees warmer than the coldest temperatures recorded overnight Friday. But weather service forecasters said that the freeze warning would be lifted tonight because the lowest minimums would be in the high 20s or low 30s, putting most crops out of frost danger.

Winds Shifting

Cegiel said that upper atmosphere winds are shifting to a northwesterly direction, meaning that the source of air flowing over Southern California will become warmer. The northerly flow during the past week allowed cold arctic air to cover California and the Southwest, resulting in the near-record lows.

A storm from the Gulf of Alaska is expected to approach the West Coast early in the week. Increasing clouds during the day Monday will turn into rain Tuesday and Wednesday, but Cegiel was unsure how much precipitation San Diegans could expect.

“It’s a little early to tell whether we’ll get the full brunt or be at the bottom of the storm,” he said.

The storm will bring further warming of nighttime weather because of a cloud cover that will regulate temperatures.

The high Saturday at Lindbergh Field was 57 and the low 37. The record low for a Dec. 26 is 32, set in 1891. Both Julian and Mt. Laguna recorded a low of 15 early Saturday, the coldest spots in the county.

Other Southern Californians can expect rain, too.

“We’re going to go from record lows to crummy weather--everybody is going to love the meteorologist after this,” said Dan Bowman of WeatherData Inc., which provides weather information to The Times.

Bowman blamed the frigid weather Saturday on the cloudless, tranquil night. Cloud cover keeps warmer air, generated by the sun, from escaping into the atmosphere during the night. Even a gusty wind keeps the temperature from plummeting by churning the warmer air so much that it can’t float away.

A cloudless night, Bowman said, “is like lying in bed without a blanket. You get colder faster. That’s kind of what happened last night.”

Temperatures were expected to once again hover in the mid-30s overnight in Los Angeles, while a freeze warning will remain in effect through tonight for agricultural areas in Southern California. Today’s temperature is expected to register in the upper 50s and low 60s during the day and drop to the low 40s at night.

Rain could hit the Southland as soon as late Monday night and is expected to linger through Wednesday, forecasters said.

It was a rough night for the homeless, but it could have been much worse. When downtown Los Angeles shelters filled up quickly, employees from the City of Los Angeles plucked up dozens of street people and drove them to recreation centers in Elysian Park, Venice and Pacoima to spend the night on cots. They were fed doughnuts and coffee in the morning and driven back to the streets at 7 a.m.

Others Used Ingenuity

Other homeless had to rely on their own ingenuity to stay warm. Many gravitated to a Skid Row theater--which runs movies all night long for a $2 ticket--until all the seats were sold. Others congregated around bonfires stoked in blackened mesh trash cans until the police ordered them extinguished.

And a small cardboard community sprung up along Los Angeles Street in downtown. About three dozen people camped out on the sidewalk in a collection of shelters rigged with cardboard, plastic sheeting and tarpaulin.

“Honey, it was cold outside, but it was like a heater in my little house,” said Dee Jones, 28, as he sorted the sweaters, turtlenecks and blankets that had lined his cardboard hut.

Heating System Faltered

Meanwhile, the heating system at Angeles Plaza, a 1,500-unit senior citizens’ complex, faltered, alternately leaving about 250 apartments without heat from Thursday to Saturday, security guard Raymond Vandenberg said.

“I didn’t get out of bed for two days because it was so cold,” complained Jeanne Barrett, a 70-year-old resident, who kept her oven on. “It ruined my whole Christmas.”

The record cold temperatures kept a lot of farmers up during the night, but agriculture experts said it will not be known until later whether there will be extensive damage. Growers used orchard heaters and wind machines to warm their fields.

“They shivered a little bit the last few nights, but it’s too early to tell if there’s damage,” said Richard Kelley, who grows oranges and grapefruit on 150 acres in Hemet, where temperatures plunged to 25 degrees Friday and 22 degrees on Christmas Eve.

In Orange County, the predawn temperatures dipped to 30 degrees, causing widespread damage to strawberry fields and lesser damage to nursery plants, an agent for the University of California Agricultural Extension Service in Irvine said.

“To wash the ice off the leaves, we ran sprinklers for 15 minutes this morning begining at 5 a.m.,” said Luis Velati, a supervisor at an Irvine nursery.

An icy film also coated freeway interchanges, roads and sidewalks Saturday morning, causing at least five minor traffic collisions in the San Fernando Valley as cars slipped out of control, authorities said.

‘It Was Slippery’

“There was ice all over the place, said John Timmons, an LAPD traffic officer in the Valley. “People were walking very carefully. It was slippery, real slippery.”

In Central California, frustrated police and fire dispatchers have been deluged with calls tying up emergency 911 lines from people who wanted to know if Interstate 5 was open in Southern California. They worried about driving over the mountainous Grapevine, which was closed earlier by snow and winds.

The cold weather was blamed for at least 50 frozen water pipes at homes throughout Los Angeles, Department of Water and Power spokesman Ed Freudenburg said. Workers at the Antelope Valley Country Club used space heaters to thaw their frozen water line Saturday afternoon.

3 Fires Reported

Los Angeles County firefighters reported at least three weather-related fires on Christmas Day, blaming them on faulty fireplaces or embers from chimneys that ignited rooftops. As usual, the cold weather did not faze the surfers even though the water was a biting 53 degrees--rare even for winter.

“It’s not cold when you go in,” said lifeguard Steve Wood, stationed at Hermosa Beach. “It just burns. All your pores start to tingle.”

The high temperature Saturday was 56; the low was 35. The normal high for this date is 67 and the normal low is 48. The maximum humidity was 44% and the low was 28%.

Elsewhere, the highs and lows in Woodland Hills were 58 and 26; Torrance, 58 and 32; Santa Monica 57 and 38; Pasadena, 56 and 32; Ontario 53 and 27, and Lancaster 49 and 17.

Staff writers Lynn O’Shaughnessy, Lynn Steinberg and Tina Cravat also contributed to this report.