Late-Season Storm Lashes L.A. With Rain and Winds

A persistent, late season storm dropped more rain on Los Angeles on Tuesday than usually falls in the entire month of May, snarling freeways, knocking out electrical power and possibly contributing to the fatal crash of a light plane near Crestline.

Cyclonic winds tossed debris in the air and sent residents scurrying for cover in San Bernardino and Manhattan Beach, but no injuries were reported, damage was minor and officials were uncertain whether actual tornadoes had touched down.

The blustery weather system--a “cutoff low” that dropped from the jet stream storm track and has remained stalled off the coast since late last week--had seemed to be finally starting to move east late Monday, and forecasters had predicted an end to the rain by this morning.

Later, they weren’t so sure.

“When will the low get out of here? It does not look as though we will be rid of it soon, [but] at this point, it’s anybody’s guess,” a National Weather Service meteorologist conceded Tuesday morning in interoffice discussions, which can be unearthed on the Internet. “This cutoff ought to be penalized for a delay of spring.”

Wes Etheredge, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times, said a ripple of air that was supposed to push the storm out to the east failed to do the job.

As a result, he said, the storm remained stalled at sea Tuesday night, spinning off bands of precipitation that continued to fall throughout California.

Late Tuesday, a flash flood warning was in effect for the mountains and foothills of eastern Los Angeles County as a band of showers moved across the San Gabriel Mountains. A second band was headed toward the Los Angeles Basin.

And the National Weather Service issued a marine warning Tuesday night for inner coastal waters, including the Santa Monica Bay, as a pair of thunderstorms capable of producing high winds and hail bore landward.

The storm system, which started dropping rain on the Southland on Saturday, “doesn’t look now as though it will leave South California until Thursday,” Etheredge said.

The meteorologist said the storm has weakened somewhat, but it should drop occasional showers on the Los Angeles Basin today, with the possibility of a few heavier showers tonight. He said the showers should end Thursday morning.

The 0.49 of an inch of rain that fell on the Civic Center in the 24 hours ending at 5 p.m. Tuesday raised the total for the storm and the month to 1.02 inches, more than three times the normal total for May of 0.3 of an inch. Much heavier rain was reported in the foothills and mountains, with 3.52 inches reported at Mt. Wilson, 1.99 inches in Van Nuys, 1.76 in Chatsworth and 1.08 in Pasadena.

By 3 p.m. Tuesday, the Civic Center total for the season--which runs from July 1 through June 30--was 28.59 inches, almost twice the normal for the date of 14.61 inches. The new season’s total at the Ventura County Government Center was 40.36 inches--the highest on record there.

The California Highway Patrol said that between 5 a.m. and 9 a.m. Tuesday, there were 125 traffic accidents on the rain-slick pavement in Los Angeles County, compared to a normal figure for the period of about 55.

A number of the accidents on the San Bernardino, Santa Ana, Ventura, Long Beach and Antelope Valley freeways involved big rigs that ended up sprawled across several traffic lanes, tying up major commuter routes for hours.

The plane crash occurred about 9:30 a.m., when a single-engine aircraft that had been flying through gusty winds, heavy fog and rain clipped several power lines and trees before slamming into a slope beside a home in the San Bernardino Mountains community of Crestline.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators were en route to the site in an effort to determine what caused the crash.

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy Tony Hernandez said the body of an adult man, apparently thrown from the plane on impact, was recovered near the wreckage. No one on the ground was injured.

Officials said the identity of the man--believed to have been the pilot--and the airport from which he had taken off were not immediately determined.

In Anaheim, operations at the Orange County Storm Center came to a halt after rain seeped through the roof and into the computer room. The center is the local clearinghouse for weather-related information.

“Our alert system is down,” said secretary Juanita Dare, who with other employees was mopping and covering computers with tarps. “It’s been down all morning due to the fact that we’re being rained on inside the office.”

Two early morning transformer failures apparently triggered by the rain knocked out power to a total of 3,200 customers in South-Central Los Angeles and Compton.

The utilities said that in most cases, electrical service was restored within a couple of hours.

Witnesses in San Bernardino said powerful, cyclonic winds spun off by Tuesday’s storm whipped through the 1900 block of West Rialto Avenue at about 11:45 a.m., ripping the awnings from a building and scattering trash.

“We’ve had no confirmation of a funnel cloud, but the witnesses said there was a ‘tornado-type’ formation,” said Tom Rubio, a spokesman for the San Bernardino Fire Department.

In Manhattan Beach, witnesses said a small funnel cloud touched down briefly at a school district maintenance yard shortly after noon, rattling a car and shredding small limbs on several trees.

Etheredge said sharply changing wind directions in storms like Tuesday’s frequently generate powerful cyclonic gusts.

The National Weather Service said experts probably will study damage patterns to determine whether tornadoes actually occurred.

Times staff writers Chris Chi in Ventura County and Valerie Burgher in Orange County contributed to this story. Malnic reported from Los Angeles and Gorman from Riverside.