Another Storm Dropping In on Soggy O.C.

Orange County is expected to wake up this morning to the tail end of a low-pressure storm system that drags a cold front behind it. Most of the rain was expected to fall overnight, but commuters will face a wet morning with scattered showers dissipating by the afternoon, said Jeff House, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times.

“You’re looking at an inch and a half in Orange County and slightly more in the mountains, which is still less than the pounding you got two weeks ago,” House said. “It ought to be shutting off by late afternoon.”

Temperatures should stay mostly in the upper 50s to low 60s today, but the storm system is expected to kick up a little breeze and create a chill on its way out.

The rainfall, though not significant by itself, is adding to one of the state’s wettest winters. San Francisco is expected to log its highest seasonal total rainfall. Orange County has recorded 18.86 inches of rainfall so far--more than double the normal season total of 8.19 inches.

The level of ground saturation from the last storm is high enough that emergency officials are keeping a watchful eye, primarily in the county’s canyons, said Carol Graeber, manager of maintenance systems at the county’s storm operations center. “We don’t expect anything dramatic to happen, but we do plan to have our inspectors out in the field tonight, in case something does,” she said Monday.

With the rain coming in temperamental fits and spurts, partly cloudy skies are predicted for Wednesday, but Thursday is expected to bring another mini-tempest. “These storm systems are moving real fast, one right after the other,” House said. “We’ll get a break by Friday and Saturday.”

The last storm appears to have claimed the life of a Utah man visiting San Clemente. The body of 27-year-old Christopher Fankhouser, who disappeared Saturday in heavy surf off San Clemente’s Calafia Beach County Park, washed ashore Sunday near the San Onofre nuclear power plant.

Fankhouser, a native of New Zealand, was enrolled as a theater student at Utah Valley State College.