Powerful Storm Lashes State With Rain, Snow : Weather: Two die and traffic accidents are widespread. Snowpack is above normal for the first time in seven years.

A powerful winter storm hammered the length of California with rain and snow on Tuesday, snarling highway and air traffic, downing power lines, spinning off cyclonic winds and causing at least two deaths and multiple injuries.

More than five feet of snow was added to some portions of the Sierra snowpack, the principal source of water for most people in the state. Officials said the snowpack was above normal for the date for the first time in seven years, indicating that California’s drought could finally be coming to an end.

Highways were blocked by snow, flooding and rockslides throughout the state, and windblown snow forced the closure of several High Sierra airports and the airfield serving the western Nevada cities of Reno and Carson City.

A teen-age boy died when a mudslide swept his car into a rain-swollen creek near Modesto, and a 43-year-old man was crushed to death when winds toppled a pine tree onto his home in the Northern California town of Quincy.

Twenty-one people were injured, four seriously, when a charter bus headed for Los Angeles skidded on wet pavement and overturned near Los Banos. Scores of minor injuries were reported in other traffic accidents throughout the state.

Cyclonic winds whipped across Interstate 5 near San Clemente before touching down in a residential area, but damage was minor and there were no reports of injuries.

Heavy rain fell across the Southland, with more than 3 1/2 inches recorded by noon at Mt. Baldy Village and more than two inches at Mt. Wilson. Several foothill communities reported more than an inch, and officials in Los Angeles said the season’s total was well above average for the date.

Forecasters said the rains should ease today and skies should be mostly clear, with little likelihood of rain for the Rose Parade on Friday.

Dee Davis, a spokesman for the state Drought Information Center in Sacramento, said the latest storm has brought encouraging signs that the state’s seven-year water shortage could end this winter.

“This has all the indicators of being a storm that will ease the impacts of our present water shortages,” Davis said. “We’re a little bit more optimistic now. The storm door’s open and we’re getting more storms in.”

However, Davis cautioned that the northern part of the state needs similar storms about once every two weeks until the end of March in order to have a normal water year.

Davis said his office gauges overall precipitation by taking measurements from eight stations in the Sierra and averaging the results. If precipitation falls as snow, it is melted to give equivalent rainfall figures.

The latest storm pushed the stations to an average total this season of more than 19 inches; normal for the date is 17.8 inches.

However, the state needs considerably more rain before the statistical season ends Sept. 30--the average for an entire normal season is 50 inches.

On Tuesday, the main force of the storm struck Northern and Central California, causing dozens of traffic accidents.

A Greyhound bus en route from San Jose to Los Angeles skidded and overturned in the Pacheco Pass, injuring 21 of the 37 people aboard, according to the California Highway Patrol.

CHP Sgt. Ted Eichman said the bus was headed east on California 152 between Gilroy and Los Banos when it came upon a two-car accident that was partially blocking a lane.

Witnesses said the driver was going about 70 m.p.h. despite a steady rain and did not heed the warnings of bystanders who motioned to the bus to slow down, Eichman said.

The driver braked too late and the wheels locked, investigators said. The bus skidded across the eastbound lanes, tipped over and came to a halt on its side, partially blocking the oncoming lanes of traffic.

Three helicopters took the injured to hospitals in the area. The 16 passengers who did not need emergency care had complaints of minor to moderate pain, Eichman said.

In Tuolumne County, a mudslide roared down a hill stripped bare by a summer forest fire, knocking a car driven by 16-year-old Todd Hallman of Groveland into a creek. The youth’s body was recovered several hours later.

The storm’s other fatality occurred in Plumas County a few hours later when winds dropped a pine tree onto the home of Wiley Joe Murphy, crushing him to death. Murphy’s wife and children escaped injury.

Interstate 80 and U.S. 50--the two principal highways across the central Sierra--were blocked by ice, snow and abandoned vehicles on Tuesday. Caltrans officials said blizzard conditions were expected to continue through the night, and it was “anybody’s guess” when the highways would reopen.

Chains and snow tires were required on the few Sierra roads still open as winds gusting at up to 50 m.p.h. blew snow into six-foot drifts in some areas. Two people were injured in Truckee when they were struck by other vehicles while attempting to put chains on their cars.

To prevent avalanches on U.S. 50, workers fired cannon shells to bring the snow down from the slopes, Caltrans spokeswoman Pat Miller said.

“We want the (avalanches) planned,” she said. “We don’t want them to come down when there’s traffic on the roadway.”

At Squaw Valley, marketing director Phil Brubaker said five feet of snow had fallen at the higher elevations, providing a total of almost 12 feet of snow.

“It’s been 11 years since we have had as much snow in December,” Brubaker said. “We’re delighted.”

Lake Tahoe was buried by about three feet of new snow, stranding residents in their homes until the plows got through.

San Diego attorney Dan Stanford, who was vacationing near Kings Beach on the north shore of the lake, said he and his traveling companions had not been able to leave their cabin since noon on Monday.

“We can’t get in and out of the driveway,” he said. “We are sledding down the front steps. It’s like a luge run.”

Stanford said it may be Thursday before they are able to get out of the cabin and go skiing in the new snow.

“We’ve all got cabin fever,” he said. “We’re eating cheese and crackers and Kix cereal. Fortunately, we haven’t run out of beer yet.”

The wind and snow cut power to scores of homes around the lake, but service was restored in most areas before nightfall.

Janis Brand, a public information officer at Lake Tahoe Airport, said visibility at the airfield was down to zero, and flight operations were not expected to resume until sometime today at the earliest.

Poor visibility forced the closure late Monday night of busy Cannon International Airport, serving Reno and Carson City, and officials there declined to predict when the field would reopen.

“We’re not looking good at all,” said Rich Peacock, a spokesman for the airport.

Farther south, snow blocked U.S. 395, a main north-south route, between Carson City and the California resort of Mammoth Lakes, forcing motorists to seek refuge wherever they could.

Mike Anderson, 27, of Huntington Beach, who had been ice climbing in the area when the full force of the storm hit Monday, ended up in the bar at Nicely’s Restaurant in Lee Vining, about 60 miles north of Bishop. “The road is totally closed,” he said. “We’re just going to drink beer and see what happens.”

At the Mammoth Mountain ski resort, winds tore off part of the roof at the Yodler Haus Inn, setting off a fire sprinkler system that caused some water damage.

Tom Smith, general manager of the Mammoth Mountain Inn, said the continuing snowfall had buried the cars in the inn’s huge parking lot.

“All you can see is the antennas sticking out,” Smith said.

The storm reached the mountains above San Bernardino just after dawn on Tuesday, delaying thousands of skiers headed for the slopes near Big Bear Lake.

With heavy snow beginning to fall just after 7 a.m. at elevations above 5,000 feet, CHP officers set up a snow chain checkpoint just south of Running Springs that resulted in a four-mile traffic backup.

“We had two lanes running,” said CHP Officer George Berge. “But there was such a high number of cars that didn’t have chains that it led to a long delay.”

Traffic officials said dozens of vehicles spun out anyway on the treacherous mountain roads, but there were no serious injuries.

At both Snow Summit and Bear Mountain, the storm, which had deposited up to six inches of snow by mid-afternoon, slowed business--at least for the short run.

“Snow scares people away,” said Bear Mountain spokeswoman Anne Horton. “Seeing that snow is our livelihood, it’s ironic. But people are frightened by the chain requirements.”

In Los Angeles County, rain started falling during the night, becoming heavy in many areas before dawn.

With holiday-time traffic generally light, there were few major commuter tie-ups in the Los Angeles area, but the CHP said the rains triggered the usual plethora of fender-benders.

About 4,000 Los Angeles residents--most of them in Encino, Bel-Air and Wilmington--lost power early Tuesday morning, but electricity was restored to most customers by noon, said Ed Freudenberg, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

In Orange County, a tornado moved in from the ocean and touched down in a San Clemente neighborhood about 11:30 a.m., ripping out a small grove of eucalyptus trees and toppling a light standard.

Shirley Folmer watched it from her front window.

“It was like a big long funnel, dark gray, just spinning like mad,” she said. “It looked like it was coming right at our house. It scared me to death.”

Folmer’s street was closed for most of the day as work crews called back from their Christmas holiday removed huge tree limbs and repaired the light pole.

A total of 0.65 of an inch of rain had fallen at the Los Angeles Civic Center in the 24 hours preceding 4 p.m. Tuesday. That raised the season’s total to 5.16 inches, compared to a normal season’s total for the date of 4.24 inches.

Other daily totals for the storm as of 4 p.m. Tuesday included 1.56 inches in Monrovia, 1.24 in El Toro, 1.17 in Glendale, 1.04 in Woodland Hills, 0.74 in Redondo Beach and 0.57 in Culver City.

Rick Dittmann, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., said skies should be clear this morning, remaining mostly clear for the rest of the week.

Malnic reported from Los Angeles and Paddock from San Francisco. Times staff writers Paul Feldman in Big Bear, Catherine Gewertz in Orange County and Somini Sengupta in Los Angeles contributed to this story.

Southland Rain Watch

Rainfall figures for the 24-hour period ending at 4 p.m. Tuesday. Season totals and norms are based on precipitation from July 1 to date.

REGION PRECIPITATION IN INCHES 24-Hour Storm Season Season Total Total* Total Norm L.A. BASIN Avalon/Catalina 0.31 0.78 5.01 3.58 Culver City 0.57 1.16 5.37 4.04 Long Beach 0.67 1.04 5.41 5.87 L.A. Civic Center 0.65 1.11 5.16 4.24 L.A. Int’l Airport 0.67 1.44 5.35 3.72 Montebello NA 0.43 5.64 3.90 Santa Monica 0.28 0.69 3.35 3.79 Torrance 0.66 1.27 4.70 3.88 UCLA 1.01 1.47 6.38 4.91 VALLEYS/CANYONS Beaumont 0.56 1.64 8.01 5.00 Monrovia 1.56 2.32 10.15 NA Northridge NA NA 3.70 NA Pasadena 1.10 1.10 7.54 5.90 San Bernardino 0.00 0.87 4.22 5.21 San Gabriel 1.20 1.88 8.98 5.19 Santa Clarita 0.91 1.52 5.03 5.29 Woodland Hills 1.04 1.57 6.65 4.94

NA indicates figures not available. In other cases, some totals may be incomplete because of missing station reports.

* Amount of rainfall since the last zero-precipitation day.

SOURCE: National Weather Service and WeatherData Inc.