More Rain Raises Fears of Floods, Mudslides : Storms: Forecasters say heavy showers are expected. Residents near Lake Elsinore prepare for a possible overflow.

Rain began to fall again on waterlogged Southern California on Friday as concern mounted over possible widespread flooding in the Lake Elsinore area of Riverside County and meteorologists warned of more destructive mudslides.

Although rainfall was generally light during most of the day, forecasters said occasionally heavy showers and thundershowers could hammer the Southland overnight and today.

“With the hillsides soaked the way they are now, the slide potential is still definitely there,” said Dean Jones, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc.

Geologists kept an especially close watch on the costal bluffs above San Clemente, where a massive landslide destroyed five homes Monday, but as of nightfall, no additional slippage had been detected.

A funnel cloud was sighted over the ocean about three miles off San Onofre on Friday afternoon, but there were no reports of damage.

The current storm has brought colder temperatures than most of the previous storms, and that means a lot more snow in Southern California’s mountains--good news for skiers but bad news for those using the Tejon and Cajon passes to get out of town for the weekend.

Snow forced the closure of Interstate 5 near Ft. Tejon for several hours Friday morning, but the state’s principal highway between Los Angeles and San Francisco was reopened before noon. Although the pavement was slippery, traffic was moving through the pass at sundown.

A few miles to the south, two lanes of I-5 that buckled under heavy rain Wednesday remained closed Friday afternoon. Caltrans officials said the lanes probably would not be reopened until next week.

In Riverside County, 11,000 sandbags were distributed to residents as Lake Elsinore continued to creep toward scores of homes.

By Friday, the water level of the shallow lake had come within 3 1/2 feet of flood level, a seven-inch rise in 24 hours, said Dick Watenpaugh, special projects manager for the city of Lake Elsinore. About 140 homes are built within two feet of the flood level.

Every inch of rainfall over the 750-square-mile watershed that drains into Lake Elsinore raises the lake by another foot, although that increase takes several days, Watenpaugh said.

Experts figure that the lake will rise to within 1 1/2 feet of flood level by March 11, even if it stopped raining. With more rain forecast, the flood level probably will be reached much sooner.

The Army Corps of Engineers is scheduled to begin clearing an outflow creek Monday that has been overgrown with vegetation so that when the water hits flood level it can drain to the Prado Flood Control Basin 20 miles downstream near Corona.

But that channel, cleared of vegetation, might not be able to keep pace with the rising lake, especially if there is substantially more rain, Watenpaugh said.

When cleared, the outflow creek will drain about 850 cubic feet of water per second, but up to 5,000 cubic feet of water per second has drained into the lake during recent periods of heavy rain. There is one good trend, although it may not last: In recent days, the amount of water draining into Lake Elsinore has decreased somewhat.

The lake is about 33 feet deep and covers 3,500 acres. In December, the lake was just 4 1/2 feet deep and covered 2,300 acres.

Lake Elsinore City Hall has set up emergency phone lines to handle calls from concerned residents. “We’re warning people to be aware of the problem, but unless rains come down really hard, you won’t see any overnight emergency situations,” Watenpaugh said.

The only flood rescue reported Friday involved a disoriented beaver found in a desert wash in a residential neighborhood of Hesperia in San Bernardino County.

“We don’t know how it got there, or where it was supposed to be,” said Matt Montgomery, an animal control officer. “But it would seem to be miles away from the nearest logical habitat.”

Montgomery was waiting for advice from the state Department of Fish and Game on where to release the beaver.

In Ventura County, bulldozers piled sand along the banks of the swollen Santa Clara River to keep it from flooding the adjacent Fillmore sewage treatment plant and releasing more than 1 million gallons of raw sewage a day into the river.

Construction of permanent barriers is scheduled to begin Tuesday, said Bert Rapp, a Fillmore city engineer.

North of Ojai, road crews labored to clear some of the rockslides that have closed a stretch of California 33 from Wheeler Camp to Ozena.

Friday’s rains began to soak through sagging tents set up as temporary housing at Oxnard’s Rescue Mission. Two canvas tents housing 44 men were gradually sinking into the mud.

“Slowly, they’re going down,” mission housing manager Dave Deveraux said. “There’s nothing we can do.”

The new rain further damaged Ventura County’s ripening strawberry crop, which accounts for 20% of the state’s strawberry production.

“I’ve been here 37 years, and I’ve never seen it this bad before,” said John Meichel, a field supervisor at McGrath Farms in Oxnard.

To the north, up to eight inches of snow fell in the Santa Cruz Mountains south of San Francisco. Drifts blocked California 9, one of the principal routes between Santa Cruz and Santa Clara counties, and downed power poles cut electrical service to about 5,000 customers.

In the High Sierra, heavy snow set off an avalanche Friday morning that cut off the town of June Lake for the second time in less than a week. Caltrans officials said it took all day to clear the snow that blocked California 158. Last weekend, another avalanche in the same area blocked the highway for three days.

Jones of WeatherData said the rain will continue across Southern California today and tonight, with a good chance of occasionally heavy showers and thundershowers. By Sunday morning, he said, skies should start to clear, “and there should be some really nice, dry, sunny weather Sunday afternoon through most of Wednesday.”

However, another wintry storm heading south along the Pacific Coast is expected to reach Southern California by Wednesday afternoon, Jones said, and there is a good chance of more rain in the Southland by Wednesday night.

The current storm dropped 0.19 of an inch of rain at the Los Angeles Civic Center by 4 p.m. Friday, raising the season’s total to 23.77 inches. That compares to a normal seasonal total of 10.7 inches by this date.

Friday’s high temperature downtown was 54 degrees after an overnight low of 49. Jones said temperatures should remain on the cool side today, with highs in most parts of the Los Angeles Basin in the mid- to high 50s. A gradual warming trend is to begin Sunday, with highs reaching into the upper 60s by Tuesday.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Julie Tamaki in Los Angeles and Sara Catania in Ventura County and Times correspondents Brenda Day in Ventura County and Martin Forstenzer in Bishop. Malnic reported from Los Angeles and Gorman from Riverside County.