‘Strange Weather Day’ in Southland : Precipitation: North Hills area receives light snowfall. The blustery storm system hopscotches across the region, also dropping some hail.

It snowed in the San Fernando Valley Tuesday for the first time in five years, an unusual occurrence in itself, never mind the rain, hail and thunderstorms all in the same day.

“It’s just an unusually strong spring storm, like something you’d expect in the winter, and even kind of strong for that,” said Curtis Brack, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which provides weather information to The Times.

After checking all the instruments that gauge upper-level air pressure and the computer aided graphics that track storm systems, Brack concluded what most Valley residents confirmed without all the dials and gauges.

“Today was a very strange weather day for Southern California,” he said.

Lee Ann Ercolono, 32, of Tujunga, said she was driving on Sepulveda Boulevard in North Hills when the snow started to come down hard, quickly forming slush puddles as it melted in the street.

Ahead of her, two cars spun out.

“This is incredible, I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Ercolono said, or at least not in her recent memory. About 20 years ago, she moved here from Long Island.

“To see cars spin out, there was actually ice on the ground,” she said in amazement.

Her cousin, Drew Ercolono, the proprietor of a used-car lot in North Hills, felt as if he had been singled out by the weather fates. “We came out (here) to avoid the snow,” he said.

“Seems like it just snowed on me, today.”

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He was almost right. That area, near the dividing line between North Hills and Mission Hills, was just about the only spot that reported snow in the San Fernando Valley on Tuesday.

Across the street from the car lot, at The Hair Lib styling salon, Cassandra Phillips, 35, and her husband, Jesse Torres, 40, of Valencia did what any thinking Southern Californian would do in an April snow: they broke out the Polaroid camera.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Phillips, who grabbed the camera. “I wanted (a photo) for myself because it came out of nowhere. Of course I’ve seen snow before, but not here.”

The snowfall lasted about 15 minutes, said the merchants.

Torres remembered the winter storm five years ago that dumped about six inches of snow in Santa Clarita as well as leaving its mark as far south as Tarzana in the San Fernando Valley.

This year’s cold, blustery storm system hopscotched across Southern California, drenching some areas with sudden downpours, peppering others with pea-sized hail and also dusting San Dimas with a little snow.

A funnel cloud was reported over the ocean south of Camp Pendleton and several others were sighted near Bakersfield and in rural areas of Riverside and San Bernardino counties. None of the twisters touched down and there was no major damage.

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The rain forced postponement of Tuesday night’s battle in the Medfly war, grounding helicopters scheduled to spray the Corona and Norco areas with the insecticide malathion. The rain and rough weather also canceled a handful of college and high school baseball and softball games, including a game between the Cal State Northridge and University of San Diego baseball teams in San Diego.

While brief, heavy cloudbursts were reported in Malibu and Altadena--areas stripped of ground cover during last fall’s devastating brush fires--there were no large mudslides and no reports of flooding.

Lightning strikes were spotted throughout the Southland, and several brief power outages were reported.

Rainfall totals from the storm generally were light, with 0.71 of an inch reported in Anaheim, 0.70 in Woodland Hills, 0.56 in Monrovia, 0.45 in Beaumont, 0.37 in San Juan Capistrano, 0.29 in Pasadena, 0.20 in Redondo Beach and 0.06 in Long Beach.

The 24-hour total at the Los Angeles Civic Center Tuesday night was 0.09 of an inch. That raised the season’s total to 7.65 inches, compared to the normal season’s total for the date of 14.47 inches. The rainfall season runs from July 1 through June 30.