Long-Awaited Rainfall Brings Freeway Havoc : Weather: Some portions of the county are drenched, but forecasters doubt it will make a dent on the four-year drought.

Rain, a rare sight the past four years, poured down Monday night on parched Orange County, causing havoc on the freeways as motorists tried to remember how to drive on on slick roads.

At least 30 “fender-benders” were reported on county freeways late Monday, California Highway Patrol officials said.

“The roads are really slick because the rain lifts the oil from the surface,” said a CHP dispatcher. “There’s been a lot of accidents. People aren’t used to driving in the rain. It’s been so long.”

Scattered power failures were reported in Garden Grove and Stanton, a Southern California Edison spokesman said.

Monday night’s downpour was the first measurable precipitation since Aug. 5 and the most significant rain in the Southland since May 28.

Although the compact but powerful storm system, which arrived from the Pacific Ocean during the afternoon, dampened the Southland, it was not expected to be the “drought buster” the county needs, forecasters said.

The storm should leave the county early today and give way to cooler, clear skies and gusty winds by mid-morning, according to Marty McKewon, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times.

As much as half an inch of rain could fall in some mountain and coastal areas, McKewon said. No precipitation figures were available late Monday night.

“It’s not a real big storm system . . . but it does have a pretty good punch,” McKewon said.

“The system looks like it’s got quite a bit of moisture. But I don’t think a widespread range, from Santa Barbara to San Diego, is going to get rain. Unfortunately, some locations will get very little, if any,” McKewon said.

By Thanksgiving, the temperatures throughout Orange County should warm up to a pleasant 70 degrees, forecasters said.

The high temperature in the county Monday was a mild 65 degrees in Santa Ana.

The foreboding weather Monday, which included gusting winds over the Mojave Desert, forced the space shuttle Atlantis to delay landing. The swirling winds are not expected to let up today, McKewon said.

Earlier Monday, before the downpour, anticipation ran high. People pulled out their umbrellas and slickers, brought in their dogs and cats and cast watchful glances from office windows before stepping outside.

“All the media and every John Doe is calling in, wanting to know if it is really going to rain, what are the chances of rain, how much rain are we going to get, when is it going to rain,” said meteorologist Jerry McDuffie of the National Weather Service in Los Angeles.

“It hasn’t rained in so long, and it’s just something people in California do out here, period.”

So far, Orange County has received only several hundredths of an inch of rain for the season, which started July 1. The average precipitation at this point of the season is 1.59 inches.

For the last four years, Southern California has been suffering a drought, with rainfall levels far below normal. The average amount of precipitation recorded by the end of October is 11.03 inches; this year, a mere 6.30 inches has been measured in the same period, McDuffie said.

Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson contributed to this report.