A Little Snow Included With a Lot of Weather : Storm: County sees snow, rain, hail and sunshine all in one day. Even forecasters found it ‘pretty exciting.’

The second significant storm in a week sloshed through California’s open “storm door” Wednesday, delighting residents of several Orange County communities with a burst of snow but causing a fatal traffic accident in Irvine that killed three people.

Snow fell for more than in hour Wednesday evening in Trabuco Canyon and in its lower-lying neighbors, Rancho Santa Margarita and Coto de Caza. It also dusted the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains, in the Antelope Valley, and in the Tehachapi and San Bernardino ranges.

Meteorologists said Orange County experienced all the major elements of the weather Wednesday--snow, hail, rain and sunshine. “It’s certainly a unique place,” said Rick Dittman, a meteorologist at WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times. “This was a pretty exciting (weather) system that brought along almost everything.”

Cold rain fell in torrents at times, slowing traffic on rain-slick freeways and streets. And in the afternoon, hail accompanied by frequent bursts of thunder and lightning pounded some areas of Orange County.

Heavy rains and low visibility were contributed to the deaths of three people on the Santa Ana Freeway in Irvine early Wednesday, the California Highway Patrol said. The driver of a van apparently lost control in a downpour and struck a guardrail. The three occupants of the van were killed when a truck hit it from behind.

The CHP identified the van driver as Wayne Wonhyung Yoo, 29, and his passengers as Suk Young Yoo, 25, and Au Do Park, 55.

The truck driver was unhurt.

Rancho Santa Margarita residents, who woke up Wednesday morning to see the foothills of Saddleback covered with snow, were in for another rare treat.

Around 4 p.m. Wednesday, snowflakes began fluttering down the mountain, temporarily covering lush green lawns in the three South County communities.

“This is what I call postcard perfect,” said Rancho Santa Margarita resident Kevin Cartwright as he looked through the living room window of his condominium overlooking Lago Santa Margarita. “The sun is shining. The snow is falling. The yard is covered (with snow). And we even have a rainbow over the mountain. What more can you want?”

Scores of children gathered outside to catch the falling flakes and make tiny snowballs. “This is exciting!” shrieked 9-year-old Katy Watson of Rancho Santa Margarita. “I want it to snow more! I want to build a snowman!”

But her wishes were short-lived. Almost as soon as the snowflakes stopped falling, bursts of lightning and thunder ushered in a downpour that quickly washed away the small accumulation of snow.

At Coto de Caza near Mission Viejo, snow fell for about half an hour starting around 4:30 p.m. Some of the snow accumulated, but it melted quickly.

“It was beautiful,” said Gerald Bailey, a visitor at Coto de Caza’s equestrian center. “One of the most beautiful days I’ve seen here.”

Big Bear Lake reported 8 to 12 inches of new snow, and a foot to a foot and a half of snow was on the ground at Lake Arrowhead.

Elsewhere in the Southland, the scene was less picturesque. A small tornado swept at tree-top height along a fifth-of-a-mile path in Pico Rivera on Tuesday night, damaging the roofs of at least three homes and toppling trees. No injuries were reported.

Phyllis Carpenter, a resident of Leisure World Apartments in Seal Beach, said it was around the same time when heavy winds swept away the patio roof of her building. Orange County firefighters assisted her in cleaning the broken windows and debris from the fallen roof.

“The (firefighters) told me it was probably a spiral tornado,” Carpenter said. “But I thought that a plane crashed into the building. It made a quick swooshing noise and it was over.”

Carpenter said a contractor estimated damage to her building at $15,000.

Snow and ice forced the brief closure of the Antelope Valley Freeway in northern Los Angeles county Wednesday morning. The weather was blamed for 16 traffic accidents in that area, including a 10-car pileup, in less than an hour during morning commuting hours. No serious injuries were reported, but the CHP reported that tangled cars littered a five-mile stretch of the freeway, which was closed from Angeles Forest Highway north to Palmdale Boulevard.

The storm dropped 0.57 of an inch of rainfall in Anaheim and 0.75 in San Juan Capistrano. The heavy rainfall kept roofing contractors busy. Don Ritz, the owner of Custom Roofing in Orange, said that his business was booming.

“It’s been pretty hectic,” he said, noting that he responded to 50 complaints of leaky roofs Wednesday. “We have anything from ceilings collapsing to tile floating.”

The cold weather forced homeless people to flock to shelters. The Orange County Rescue Mission in Santa Ana was packed to capacity Wednesday night. Joe Furey, the mission’s night chaplain, said 54 homeless people had crammed into the shelter.

“When the weather gets cold and rainy, we get full,” Furey said. “We’ve been full for the past week.”

John Webb, a research and planning manager for the Orange County Social Services Agency, said an additional 63 homeless people had checked into the Fullerton National Guard Armory, which is opened for the homeless in cold weather.

About 45 people had also filled to capacity the agency’s makeshift shelter at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church of Newport Beach, he said.

Dittman of WeatherData Inc. said Wednesday that Southern Californians can expect more cool temperatures for the next few nights, especially in inland valleys, with nighttime lows possibly in the 20s in Riverside, Beaumont, Ontario and Woodland Hills.

Wednesday’s high temperature in Santa Ana was 59 degrees. The low was 43. Relative humidity ranged from 43% to 90%.

Dittman predicted that the weather will be “generally unsettled” for the remainder of the week as the upper-level cold front of the departing storm moves east, but lingers over Southwestern states for a day or two.