Wintry Wallop : Weather: High desert, mountains are blanketed by snow as rain snarls city traffic. Another storm is expected Sunday, with a third on Tuesday.

A chilly Pacific storm dumped a little rain and a lot of snow on Southern California on Friday, stalling weekend getaway traffic in a tangle of slick streets, congested freeways and icy mountain passes.

Hail peppered the Malibu coast, lightning hammered the Channel Islands, and a funnel cloud was reported off the coast near Del Mar as sporadic showers fell throughout the Southland. The gauge at the Los Angeles Civic Center showed that .04 of an inch of rain had fallen there by 4:30 p.m.

The big weather story for the day was the snow, which blanketed local 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 the 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.

In the Antelope Valley, up to two inches of snow fell Friday morning, forcing the 450-student Hughes-Elizabeth Lakes Union School District to close for the day and prompting three other schools to close early.

Fender-benders were numerous throughout the valley, and one man was injured when a snowplow skidded into his car as he made a U-turn in front of it on Angeles Forest Highway just off the Antelope Valley Freeway. The driver was treated at Palmdale Hospital Medical Center and released.

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.”

Friday’s snow and rain came from the first in a series of wintry storms moving south from the Gulf of Alaska. Forecasters said that skies are expected to clear partially today, with only a few scattered showers, but a second storm should bring more snow and rain by Sunday night. A third storm probably will reach the area by Tuesday.

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.

Occasionally heavy rain caused delays along the Foothill Freeway in the Irwindale and Pasadena areas, and a collision during a shower on the southbound Pasadena Freeway backed up traffic for several miles.

“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.

The snow 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.”

Friday’s rain in downtown Los Angeles raised the season’s total there to .81 of an inch. The normal season’s total for the date is 2.69 inches.

Other 4:30 p.m. measurements for the day included .30 of an inch in Culver City, .17 at Los Angeles International Airport and Torrance, .10 in Woodland Hills and Glendale, .08 in San Gabriel, .05 in Northridge and Monrovia, and .03 in Anaheim.

The high temperature at the Los Angeles Civic Center on Friday was 59 degrees, following an overnight low of 52.

Steve Burback, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., said temperatures should remain much the same in the Los Angeles metropolitan area for the next few days, with lows generally in the 40s and highs in the upper 50s and low 60s.

He said that after today’s partial clearing, the clouds will increase again Sunday morning, with rain in the valleys--and snow in the mountains--by afternoon.

Showers will continue into Monday, Burback said, with no break before another storm brings more rain and snow Tuesday.