Hail--Then Farewell

A freak hailstorm sped through the Los Angeles area Monday, pelting the streets with marble-sized ice crystals that delighted vacationing schoolchildren and stunned holiday travelers.

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

The storm lasted no more than 45 minutes and ended as suddenly as it began.

“It sort of did everything and left,” said Sheriff’s Deputy Dan Jarvis at the Malibu station, where the sky swung from sun to storm and back again.

“Freaky” was the reaction from Judi Bowers at Bear Mountain Ski Resort. “It was as if Mother Nature can’t make up her mind.”

“It was basically a line of isolated showers with some embedded thunderstorms” that began in the mountains of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, said meteorologist Curtis Brack of WeatherData, which provides forecasts for The Times.

“The Bakersfield area got hail over an inch in diameter, and funnel clouds were reported in western Kern County,” just beyond the Santa Clarita Valley, Brack said.

The storm then moved south, “curving around the L.A. Basin into Santa Monica and through the west part of Los Angeles, then curving back downward toward Riverside and San Bernardino,” Brack said. “Anyplace that got showers didn’t get them for very long.”

“It was a little bizarre,” said Brent 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.”

Because many of the chain’s 19 eateries offer outdoor seating, “any extremes of weather affect us,” he explained.

Some of the worst hail hit the San Fernando Valley, where it was accompanied by a cold front that brought gusty winds and dropped the temperature from the mid-60s to the mid-40s in minutes.

The sudden storm tangled freeway traffic--which was light due to the Presidents Day holiday--but no major accidents or injuries were reported.

Police were kept busy, though, responding to burglar alarms triggered by hailstones pelting the windows of homes and of businesses closed for the holiday.

“It was exciting,” said receptionist Judy Hastings at the Hillcrest Country Club on the Westside. The last time she saw hail in Los Angeles, she said, “I was about 8 years old and in my schoolyard.”

In Angeles National Forest, an injured hiker was stranded when the storm prevented a Los Angeles County Fire Department helicopter rescue team from airlifting the man out.

A department spokesman said the hiker had slipped and fallen on a trail deep in the forest in an area just above La Canada that is inaccessible by car or truck. The high winds, hail and rain forced a rescue unit to hike into the forest and carry him out on a stretcher, the spokesman said.

The stormy weather also complicated operations at Burbank Airport, where departing planes were backed up briefly on the runways because the hail limited visibility and kept ground crews from servicing or refueling the jets.

The wet weather should be just a memory by today. Although temperatures in the Valley were expected to drop into the 40s overnight, today is likely to bring sunny skies and drier air, Brack said.

Some areas of the Valley will get gusty winds up to 50 mph today, Brack said, which will keep temperatures there on the cool side. “Expect it to be in the 60s, mostly sunny [today], then a little warmer on Wednesday as the winds let up,” he said.