One Dousing Deserves Another

By ERIC MALNIC and H.G. REZA

Jan. 26, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

A cold and troublesome storm slammed into Southern California early Monday, dumping rain that snarled traffic in the Los Angeles Basin and snow that blocked the Golden State Freeway for several hours, whitening Bakersfield for the first time in almost 25 years.

The unsettled weather, which produced scattered thunderstorms and a funnel cloud that dipped to within 100 feet of the water off Laguna Beach, was expected to continue today, with a likelihood of scattered morning and afternoon showers before skies start clearing sometime tonight.

The overnight storm left a dusting of snow on the Santa Ana Mountains, providing some motorists a picture-postcard view from Interstate 5.

Traffic moved at a crawl on the county’s major freeways. The slick pavement contributed to the usual weather-related accidents, but authorities reported no major road closures or delays.

Southland rainfall totals generally were moderate Monday, with 0.77 of an inch reported in Burbank, 0.72 in Glendale, 0.42 in Long Beach and just 0.37 at the Civic Center in Los Angeles.

That was enough, however, to tangle the Monday morning commute and trigger dozens of traffic accidents.

The California Highway Patrol issued two SigAlerts in Orange County on Monday morning. Three people were injured in a three-car accident near Laguna Canyon Road at 8:35 a.m., delaying traffic for about 15 minutes while Caltrans cleared the road.

In Fountain Valley, two trucks collided in the southbound lanes of the 405 Freeway at 6:33 a.m., delaying traffic for about 30 minutes. There were no injuries reported.

CHP officials received 115 accident reports between 2 and 9 a.m., and 56 turned out to be actual crashes, said Officer Mark Reeves. “There’s nothing really out of the ordinary today. Sometimes, people just drive too fast in the rain or too close to each other,” he said.

The winter weather also prompted warnings to boaters after the National Weather Service reported a waterspout that accompanied a thunderstorm 10 miles southwest of Huntington Beach.

Petty Officer Dawn Butler said the Coast Guard station in Long Beach received a report at 11 a.m. from a boater who reported the waterspout. However, Butler said the station had not received any calls for assistance.

The Orange County Harbor Patrol was also on alert, keeping an eye on the thunderstorm heading toward Huntington Beach and another toward Dana Point. A Harbor Patrol spokeswoman in Dana Point said officers were preparing for possible high winds and lightning.

In Los Angeles, an accident left part of a jackknifed big rig dangling from an overpass on the Golden State Freeway near Elysian Park. And farther north on the freeway, snow blocked a 40-mile stretch of the state’s principal north-south artery. Snow up to 8 inches deep forced closure of the interstate through the Tehachapi Mountains about 8 a.m. Monday.

“I’ll just have to call my employer and tell him I’m stuck,” Bruce Petereit, a construction company employee, said as he sipped coffee with dozens of others stranded at a truck stop in Grapevine, just north of Gorman.

Petereit and the others finally resumed their journeys about 11 a.m., when plows finished clearing the pavement and the California Highway Patrol reopened the freeway between Castaic Junction and Laval Road.

Other routes through the Tehachapis that were temporarily blocked by snow included California 166 between Cuyama and Maricopa and California 58 between Mojave and Tehachapi.

Six inches of snow fell on Bakersfield, prompting a rash of snowball fights and the sculpting of hundreds of snowmen. Officials said it was the first measurable snowfall in the city since March 8, 1974. Kern County officials closed 150 schools, apparently as much to let schoolchildren frolic as because of the travel difficulties.

By midmorning, the precipitation in Bakersfield had changed to rain, and the snow turned to slush. Meadows Field, the principal airport in Bakersfield, reported 1.37 inches of rain, more than twice the record for the date set in 1952.

A foot of snow fell in Rose Valley, north of Ojai, with as much as 18 inches on Mt. Pinos, said Joe Pasinato, a spokesman for Los Padres National Forest.

Light snow fell as low as 3,000 feet in the San Gabriel Mountains above Los Angeles, with as much as 6 inches piling up at resort levels above 5,000 feet.

Snow continued to fall Monday afternoon in the San Bernardino Mountains, and Todd Morris, a National Weather Service forecaster, said that as much as a foot could accumulate there above 7,000 feet by dawn today.

“It’s been snowing all day,” Gen Paquet, a spokeswoman for the Snow Summit ski resort above Big Bear Lake, said Monday afternoon.

Chains were required on most mountain roads above 5,000 feet on Monday, and morning commuters found the rain-washed roads almost as slippery in the urban areas of Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Forecasters said a second storm, expected to hit Southern California sometime this morning, should be just as cold as Monday’s, with snow expected as low as 3,500 feet in the Tehachapi, San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains.

The second storm won’t carry as much moisture as the first, though. Jeff House, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times, said today’s rain showers in the Los Angeles Basin probably will be lighter and more scattered than Monday’s.

Times staff writer Michael Luo in the San Fernando Valley and correspondent Anne Gorman in Ventura contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Drier Season

Despite the half-inch of rain that dropped in some parts of the county, seasonal rainfall so far is more than two inches less than normal to date. Rain for the 24-hour period ending 4 p.m. Monday and seasonal totals, taken in Santa Ana, to date, in inches:

Storm Totals

Anaheim: .50

Dana Point: .47

Fullerton: .23

Irvine: .50

Laguna Beach: .50

Newport Beach: .40

San Juan Capistrano: .42

Santa Ana: .47

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Season To Date

1994: 1.84