Weird Weather Keeps Southlanders Guessing

Isolated rainstorms spawned by a fast-moving cold front swept over portions of south Orange County on Monday, while scattered rain and sprinkles moved through the rest of the area.

Winds formed more of a presence than the rain, with gusts peaking between 30 and 50 mph, said Curtis Brack, meteorologist for WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times. The storms were expected to abate by midnight, he said.

But in Los Angeles County, the weather Monday was, in a word, weird.

Brent Maire didn’t know what to make of the odd and contradictory weather reports he was hearing from employees around Southern California.

“It was a little bizarre,” said Maire, general manager of the Tommy’s Original World Famous Hamburgers chain. “Our supervisors in the field in Orange County were saying the sun was out and the weather was real nice. Someone else up in Burbank and the Valley was saying it was hailing. So it was a little bit on the weird side.”

The Los Angeles area got doses of sun, rain, thunder, lightning, wind and a freaky hailstorm--sometimes in the same neighborhood within an hour or so.

The speed of change caught many Angelenos by surprise, and without umbrellas. Presidents Day holiday travelers were similarly stunned, especially by a fresh layer of snow in the San Bernardino Mountains. But children were delighted by the rare spectacle of marble-size hail pelting city streets.

The San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys bore the brunt of the holiday storm, which struck suddenly in midafternoon, quickly turning blue skies ominously dark and unleashing fierce winds, booming thunder and flashes of lightning.

*

The storm lasted no more than 45 minutes and ended as suddenly as it began. But it was dramatic, accompanied by temperatures that dropped in minutes in some spots from the mid-60s to the mid-40s and winds that were clocked at 32 mph in Long Beach and 45 mph in Oxnard.

The cause was a fast-moving cold front that moved southeast from Northern California, Brack said.

The front’s speed ensured that “any one spot won’t get too much rain,” he said. And the storm should be across the Mexican border by early today, he added.

The WeatherData forecast for today calls for mostly sunny skies with temperatures in the mid-60s at the Los Angeles Civic Center, but with some remaining gusts of winds out of the north between 20 and 35 mph.

In Orange County, the winds will come from the northeast at first, then the north, he said, not quite forming the Santa Ana effect that comes from east winds.

In Los Angeles, the unusual hail at the Hillcrest Country Club on the Westside drove golfers inside but drew receptionist Judy Hastings outdoors for a few minutes. The size of “rabbit pellets,” the hail was the first she could recall seeing in about 30 years.

“It was exciting,” she said. “The last time I did that, I was about 8 years old and in my schoolyard.”

The sudden storm tangled freeway traffic--which was light because of the holiday--but no major accidents or injuries were reported.

Also contributing to this report was staff writer Scott Martelle in Orange County.