Clouds and Showers May Usher in Spring Break as Storm Nears San Diego

A slow-moving Pacific storm and mild temperatures promise to put a damper on the enthusiasm of student revelers on spring break beginning this weekend.

More than 40,000 students from San Diego State University, the University of San Diego and some local school districts are on vacation through next weekend.

Today will be dry, but skies will start clouding up Saturday, and sporadic showers are expected by Sunday morning, said Wilbur Shigehara, a forecaster for the National Weather Service in San Diego.

The storm is about 1,000 miles west of San Diego and will take its time coming, but rain may ruin part of the weekend for sun worshipers.

This storm is the last in a series and the weakest, Shigehara said. No more than a quarter of inch of rain is expected from this storm, and next week looks dry for Passover and Easter week.

The small amounts of rain falling over the past two weeks are by no means drought-breakers because it only wets the top soil, but it does help, Shigehara said.

“It means we don’t have to water our lawns, and it’s free.”

Weekend temperatures will remain quite mild, ranging from 62 to 67 at the beaches and 65 to 72 in the coastal areas, Shigehara said. Inland, temperatures will range from 70 to 76 degrees and 63 to 68 in the mountains. The deserts will warm up to 82 to 88 degrees, with winds gusting up to 25 m.p.h.

Nighttime lows in the coastal areas will be 53 to 58 degrees, Shigehara said. Temperatures will range from 47 to 53 inland and 35 to 45 in the mountains. Desert residents can expect temperatures of 55 to 60 at night.

At the beaches, crowds could swell to 80,000 people on the weekend, depending on the weather, said city lifeguard spokesman Lt. Brant Bass.

Lifeguards do issue citations for misdemeanors but “we are expecting nothing close to the disturbances which take place in Ft. Lauderdale and Palm Springs,” Bass said.

“We will have nine beaches operating on the ocean front, and five bay beaches on Mission Bay will be opening up. We normally have 18 lifeguards on duty during the weekday in the winter, but we’ll be going to 55 starting the week of spring break.”

Spring is one of the more hazardous times of the year because of poor ocean conditions, Bass said. Nine out of 10 rescues take place in rip currents.

Beaches in Oceanside have “some of the best sand around,” said Ray Duncan, aquatic superintendent for the city. But swimmers are not prepared for the cold, 60-degree water, and they have not tuned up their swimming ability, he said.

The city will beef up its lifeguard staff from 4 to 14 Saturday along the city’s 3.7 miles of beaches. It can get busy during spring break with attendance as high as 25,000 on the weekend, Duncan said, but it’s not like it was in the late ‘60s and ‘70s.

Palm Springs and other areas have become more popular, and not all schools take spring breaks at the same time.

As for police enforcement, San Diego will have officers on foot, bicycle, horseback and in all-terrain vehicles working with lifeguards from Ocean Beach to La Jolla, said Bill Robinson, spokesman for the San Diego Police Department.

“We haven’t had any major problems in the last few years, and there’s no reason to expect spring break will be any different this year,” Robinson said. But “many families will be coming to San Diego, and they have a right to a pleasant outing without fights and shootings.”

The department also plans to implement a checkpoint for juveniles at the border with Mexico this weekend and next weekend, Robinson said. A law requiring juveniles 17 and under to be accompanied by a parent or guardian or have a passport will be enforced.

“It has been our experience that many teen-agers flock to Mexico and frequently become inebriated, and cause problems or become involved in an accident,” he said.

Tijuana police will take offenders who slip through the checkpoint and cause problems to the border and release them to San Diego police for arrest.

“The idea is not to be punitive but preserve the peace and let parents know where their children are,” Robinson said. “When we go to Mexico, we’re their guests.”