Seasonably Warm : Weather: Following an unusually wet and cool spring, forecasters see typically hot and dry summer days ahead.

Southern California’s wild ride on the weather roller coaster may be over. On Wednesday, the first day of summer, meteorologists predicted a return to typical summer weather--hot and dry--in part because El Nino conditions in the Pacific Ocean have begun to subside.

The El Nino, which occurs when water temperatures rise in the equatorial Pacific, is blamed for affecting a range of winter weather patterns, including enhancing the Pacific jet stream, which delivered some of the ferocious storms that hit Los Angeles this year. But water temperatures are now back to normal, according to experts.

“If we’re saying that El Nino is the dominant culprit, then we would have to argue that it will not be an unusual summer,” said meteorologist Michael Most of the National Weather Service’s office in Oxnard.

Meteorologists disagreed as to the role the relatively weak El Nino pattern--which began late last year--played in causing the area’s extreme spring weather. But most experts agreed that summer weather in Southern California would be more conventional than that of spring, which brought 90-degree temperatures, then nearly half an inch of rain, flooding and mudslides to the San Fernando Valley as recently as last week.

“It looks like that last little bit of rain is probably the last major bout you’ll see in Southern California for a while,” said Curtis Brack of WeatherData Inc. in Wichita, Kan.

Less than a week after Valley residents were hoisting umbrellas to keep the water away, the mercury was climbing into the 80s and they were desperately seeking its cooling powers. Wednesday, some locals sought relief by running through sprinklers, jumping in lakes and wading through tadpole-filled streams.

Los Angeles has received 24.35 inches of rain since last July 1, compared with 8.14 inches during the same period in 1993-94, according to the National Weather Service. The season--which runs from July 1 through June 30--brings 14.77 inches on average, and the record, set in 1883-84, was 38.8 inches. The NWS began keeping statistics in 1877. After six drought years ending in 1992, and below-average rainfall last year, state water officials are pleased with the results of our springtime deluges.

“This is a wonderful year if you’re into water,” remarked Bill Mork, climatologist with the state Department of Water Resources. “Everything is just about full,” with reservoirs brimming at 111% of average.

The rains lent the typically brown-hued Los Angeles area a welcome cast of Irish green throughout the spring, as grasses and shrubs flourished. But the green is already fading, and fire officials are warning that 1995’s wildfire season could be a tough one.

As for the El Nino, Hugh van den Dool of the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center in Washington, D.C., said that pointing to the warm-water condition as the cause of the turbulent spring is to oversimplify complex weather systems. But, he added, even though El Nino conditions have abated, their effects linger.

“The jet stream is still stronger than it is normally” at this time of year, he said, but unfortunately not strong enough to bring much cool air into the Los Angeles Basin.