More Rain on the Way Through Tuesday : Weather: Storm also brings snow to mountains and hail in Laguna Hills. Forecasters expect as much as an inch of rainfall in Orange County early today.

A chilly Pacific storm that covered local mountains with snow and frustrated motorists in other parts of the Southland on Friday brought only light rain and some hail to Orange County.

Although the county escaped most of the rainfall that was originally predicted, some areas did experience sporadic showers. There was also at least one brief hailstorm reported in Laguna Hills.

But the weather will get wetter, said Steve Burback, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times.

“Orange County will not come out unscathed,” he said.

Burback said as much as an inch of rain was expected to fall late Friday night and early this morning. Temperatures throughout the county should remain much the same for the next few days, with lows generally in the 40s and highs in the upper 50s and low 60s.

The forecast called for a partial clearing today with increasing cloudiness and scattered showers again Sunday. Showers will continue into Monday, Burback said, with no break before another storm brings more rain and snow Tuesday.

On Friday, Lake Forest reported the county’s most rainfall with .04 of an inch.

The weather in San Diego and Los Angeles counties was slightly harsher. Hail peppered the Malibu coast and lightning hammered the Channel Islands. A funnel cloud was reported off the coast near Del Mar.

The big weather story for the day was the snow, which blanketed area mountains and carpeted the Antelope Valley.

Interstate 15--one of the principal highway routes east of Los Angeles--was closed for much of the day by heavy snow in Cajon Pass, and skiers heading for resorts in the Big Bear area found the going extremely slow, with chains or snow tires required throughout the San Bernardino Mountains.

By nightfall Friday, the snow level in the mountains had dropped to 3,000 feet, with total accumulations of nearly a foot expected in some areas.

“We’ve had a lot of snow already, and it’s still coming down steadily,” George Berge of the California Highway Patrol said Friday afternoon from Running Springs. “We must have had 20 or 30 accidents up here already, and the traffic is building as people head up here for the weekend.

“We’ve called in every available officer on overtime,” he said. “It’s gonna be a long night.”

Friday’s snow and rain came from the first in a series of wintry storms moving south from the Gulf of Alaska.

Measurable precipitation from the first storm began falling shortly before dawn Friday, and by 7 a.m. freeways were slippery throughout the Los Angeles area.

“Pretty soon, as the rain increased, there was a general increase of accidents and disabled vehicles on all the freeways and a lot of the freeway ramps,” said CHP Officer Ernie Garcia. “Don’t blame it on the rain. Blame it on the people who don’t compensate and slow down for the rain.”

By 10 a.m., heavy snow closed the northbound lanes of Interstate 15 between the Devore cutoff and Hesperia junction. Two hours later, the southbound lanes were closed from Hesperia junction to Cajon junction.

“The plows just couldn’t keep up with the stuff,” said Gary Regan, a Caltrans spokesman.

Caltrans managed to open Interstate 15 in both directions about 2:30 p.m. Friday, but officials said heavy snow expected during the night could reclose the highway.

In the Antelope Valley, up to two inches of snow fell Friday morning. Snow also piled up quickly in the Big Bear area, with as much as eight inches reported at resort levels by late Friday afternoon. Though the snow was a boon to resort operators and skiers struggling to get there, it was a headache for Caltrans workers and CHP officers attempting to keep the roads clear.

“We’ve got a lot of spin-outs and a lot of jackknifed trucks,” Berge said. “A couple of big rigs and a motor home got sideways on Highway 18 and blocked it for about three hours. We probably had 30 accidents in the San Bernardino National Forest by midafternoon.”