Countywide : Light Rain Whets Southland’s Appetite

The first significant rain this autumn splashed Orange County and much of the rest of Southern California on Wednesday, bringing headaches for commuters and traffic officers and relief for firefighters witnessing the end of the dry spell.

While no rain is predicted today, forecasters said there could be some substantial rainfall by this weekend.

“There’s an area of low pressure in the upper atmosphere settling off the California coast, and this could bring showers and thunderstorms on Saturday, Sunday and Monday,” said Rick Dittmann, a meteorologist with WeatherData, which provides forecasts for The Times.

Dittmann said the weekend forecast calls for spotty rain, but in substantial amounts.

“There will be some areas that won’t get any rain at all, and others that will receive a lot of rain,” he said.

Dittmann said Wednesday’s light rain extended from Santa Barbara to San Diego.

In addition to clogging commuter traffic and producing a rash of fender-bender accidents, the rain also knocked out a few power lines.

In Anaheim, about 200 homes were without electricity for a few hours Wednesday afternoon after wet tree limbs short-circuited power lines. The area affected was along Brookhurst Street, and the blackout of stop lights caused problems for Anaheim police.

“A power outage like this is normal for the first rain of the season,” said Anaheim Police Lt. Jack Parra. “We also get an increase in traffic collisions because the streets have been covered with oil residue, and the first rain makes the streets slick.”

The good news was that the rain moistened the dry brush and shrubs that are autumn fire hazards.

“This first rain is welcome,” said Kathleen Cha, spokeswoman for the Orange County Fire Department. But she added: “We’re still in the middle of fire season. This rain doesn’t change that, and fire season won’t end until we’ve had significant rainfall, which will probably be any time from November on.”

On the freeways, commuters found traffic excruciatingly slow--when it moved at all. The California Highway Patrol reported working twice as many accidents as on a dry day.

The National Weather Service said Anaheim recorded only 0.04 of an inch of rain; Santa Ana logged 0.08, and Newport Beach 0.01. Temperatures stayed in the cool, comfortable range throughout the day. In Santa Ana, for instance, the high was 71 and the low was 65; Anaheim had a high of 70 and a low of 64, and Newport Beach’s high was 68, its low, 65.

In Huntington Beach and Seal Beach, lifeguards reported that rain fell fitfully in midmorning, then picked up in the early afternoon.

But the rain didn’t deter the surfers, who flocked to the Huntington Beach Pier area in usual numbers, said marine safety officer Michael Baumgartner.

“There are about 300 of them out there surfing right now,” he said.

In Seal Beach, lifeguard A. J. Summers noted a similar rainy-day phenomenon: hardly anyone on the beach or pier, but many surfers in the ocean.

“Surfers don’t care about the rain,” Summers said. “They get wet anyway.”