Forecasters All Wet

An unexpectedly cold and powerful Alaskan storm system blew in from the Pacific on Thursday, peppering Southern California with snow, hail and thundershowers and spawning a waterspout off the coast of Orange County.

“It’s sort of an April Fools’ joke on everyone,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Bruce Rockwell.

“We were pretty sure that a little weather was coming through, but it got a little more intense than we had thought,” he said. “This year, it seems like we’re getting our winter in March and April.”

Newport Beach lifeguards reported the waterspout about 3 p.m. Thursday, estimating that it was centered about eight miles west of the Newport Beach Pier.

Although potentially dangerous to the scores of boats and ships in the Catalina Channel, the spout apparently stayed clear of all watercraft and spun itself out within a half-hour. There were no reports of damage or injury.

Temperatures started on the cool side Thursday and stayed that way. After an early morning low of 46 degrees, the thermometer at the Civic Center edged up to 57 at 11 a.m., then slid back to 52 by 2 p.m. as the storm moved in. Lows in the 30s were expected early this morning in Thousand Oaks, Woodland Hills, Burbank and Newhall. Wind-swept showers and thunderstorms splattered the Southland from San Luis Obispo to San Diego on Thursday, with brief but heavy downpours reported in Hollywood, Pasadena, East Los Angeles and San Dimas.

Hail and sleet fell in Malibu and La Crescenta--not a lot of it, but enough to make the ground briefly white and slushy.

Snow was reported throughout the Tehachapi, San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains at altitudes above 3,000 feet, but most of the flurries were brief, and accumulations generally were light. All major highway passes through Southland mountains stayed open, although traffic was moving slower than usual.

The snow levels were expected to drop before dawn today, with occasional flurries as low as 2,000 feet in isolated areas.

Snow fell in the desert but most of it melted on contact. Mike Branning, owner of Unique Garden Center in Yucca Valley, carried flats of marigolds, petunias and other blooms inside, out of the cold, on Thursday afternoon.

“I was expecting spring weather, gardeners, a good weekend,” he said. “April Fools.”

In Hesperia, 17-year-old Jenny Cooley was not amused by nature’s high jinks.

“Yesterday there was hail. Then rain. Now it’s snowing,” said the Hesperia golf course employee. “It’s April. I really think this weather needs to go away.”

The Christmas card flurry failed to deter those who had showed up on the course to play. They stood valiantly on the greens, teeing their golf balls up as the snow fell.

Guy Pearson, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., a firm that provides forecasts for The Times, said an unexpectedly cold draft of arctic air destabilized Thursday’s storm system, intensifying the precipitation that fell across the Southland.

He said a ridge of high-pressure air building over the eastern Pacific should start to change the weather by this morning, initiating a gradual warming trend that is expected to continue through the weekend.

The weather service said it could rain a little on Easter Sunday, but Pearson said he doubted it. He said the next chance of rain is probably on Monday or Tuesday, “although it’s still a little early to tell.”

Times correspondent Diana Marcum in Riverside County contributed to this story.