Rainstorm Makes a Quick, Intense Visit to San Diego

Southern California’s second rainstorm within a week passed swiftly Wednesday, dampening the water-short region with more than half an inch of rainfall in some areas and dropping snow in the mountains.

In San Diego, the rainfall was not enough to make a dent in the drought, but the storm made for a lot of dented fenders, closed freeway lanes, jackknifed trucks and several accidents with injuries, authorities reported.

After wreaking havoc on the freeways for a few hours, the storm began moving out almost quickly as it came, leaving in its wake fair skies and warmer days through the weekend, said Dan Atkin, a forecaster for the National Weather Service in San Diego.

Meteorologist Marty McKewon of WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times, said the storm was more intense than predicted. It brought rain to Northern and Central California and snow to the Sierra Nevada and Southland mountains.

The storm, a cold front from the Gulf of Alaska, moved in at about 10 a.m., and peaked in intensity between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m., said National Weather Service forecaster Dan Atkin in San Diego.

By 4 p.m., Lindbergh Field had recorded .27 of an inch; Brown Field, .48; Chula Vista, .30; Del Mar, .26; El Cajon, .26; Escondido, .40; Imperial Beach, .51; La Mesa .31; National City, .28; Oceanside, .42; Poway, .09, and Vista, .44. An inch of snow fell on Mt. Laguna.

As the rain made roads slick, a big rig truck jackknifed and spilled its load of boxes on eastbound Interstate 8 near Old Town, CHP spokesman Phil Konstantin reported.

The accident occurred about 1:40 p.m. just west of Presidio Park, blocking the right-hand lane to traffic. To clear the road of boxes, the CHP closed the transition road from northbound Interstate 5 to the eastbound I-8 for about half an hour.

Soon thereafter, three major accidents and a flurry of minor accidents were reported in a 3-mile stretch along northbound Interstate 805, Konstantin said. In less than an hour, starting at 2 p.m., the stretch between the Otay Valley Road in Chula Vista and Plaza Boulevard in National City was snarled with traffic as five Hartson ambulances and the Highway Patrol officers responded to the rash of accidents, two of which involved big rig trucks.

Eight people, involved in the three major accidents were taken by paramedics to area hospitals, a Hartson spokesman said. Four of the accidents victims, two women and two children, were taken to UC San Diego Medical Center where they were reported in fair and good condition.

“It was a classic chain reaction,” Konstantin said. People stopped to look at an accident and then they crashed into the person in front of them.

“It got so bad out there that we were no longer taking documentation on non-injury accidents,” he said. Officers were not even reporting how many accidents there were because they just kept piling up, he said.

More than 700 Scripps Ranch homes were without electricity for nearly two hours after a vehicle slammed into a transformer box, a utilities’ spokesman said. Power was restored about 2 p.m.

Although both storms brought rain to Southern California, they obviously were not drought breakers, said John Weikel, a hydrologist for the Ventura County Flood Control Department.

THE RAIN 24-hour total: 0.27 in.

Storm total: 0.27 in.

Monthly total: 1.06 in.

Total for season: 2.31 in.

Last season to date: 2.23 in.

Normal season to date: 3.69 in.

Figures, based on 4 p.m. readings at Lindbergh Field, are compiled by the National Weather Service, which provides no later data.