As Rain Falls, Traffic Stalls

A blustery Alaskan storm swept through Southern California on Monday, dumping snow as low as the 700-foot level in the Santa Ynez Valley and tangling traffic on rain-slick roads.

Four SigAlerts on Orange County freeways and dozens of fender benders on surface streets slowed motorists, though no one was seriously injured.

“It was mayhem out there on the highway this morning,” California Highway Patrol Officer Mark Reeves said. “It was the typical early-morning madness commute with a little rain to add to the problems.”

The first SigAlert came after an 8:26 a.m. crash when a semitrailer truck slid out of control and hit a guard rail on the northbound Orange Freeway near Ball Road in Anaheim. Traffic crawled past the crash for hours as crews cleared the highway.

Shortly before 9 a.m., several cars collided in a chain-reaction accident that prompted a second SigAlert in the same area.

The third SigAlert brought out a fire crew at 9:50 a.m. after a big rig struck a car and spilled fuel onto the eastbound lanes of the Riverside Freeway near Coal Canyon Road in Anaheim.

Just before 10 a.m., two semitrailer trucks collided with a car, spilling fuel and jamming the southbound San Diego Freeway at Warner Avenue in Fountain Valley. Traffic was slowed for several hours while a fire crew vacuumed the fuel.

Off the freeways, conditions were no better. Eight people were taken to local hospitals in Anaheim late in the morning after several cars collided at Crone Avenue and Euclid Street. No one was seriously injured.

Aside from the traffic tie-ups, Orange County saw little damage from the storm, the brunt of the system having struck farther north.

“It would have to rain a little harder, a little longer for us to have problems,” said Doris Roush, director of Anaheim’s Streets and Sanitation Department.

Temperatures across the Southland were unseasonably cool, in the upper 40s and lower 50s across Orange County and even lower elsewhere.

Snow frosted low-lying fields near Los Olivos for the first time in 35 years and piled up 7 inches in the San Marcos Pass, between Santa Barbara and Santa Ynez, blocking California 154 for several hours.

Interstate 5, the state’s principal north-south freeway, was shut down for two hours in the Grapevine area before snowplows were able to clear the pavement.

Angeles Forest Highway through the San Gabriel Mountains remained closed all day, and chains were required at resort levels in the San Bernardino, San Jacinto and Santa Rosa mountains.

Hail whitened lawns in Glendale, La Canada Flintridge, Altadena and Pasadena as a hard rain fell.

While forecasters expected this storm to pass by dawn today, there is a chance of more rain and snow Friday.

About 200 traffic accidents occurred in Los Angeles County between 5 and 9 a.m., about triple the normal number for a Monday morning commute. A mudslide blocked Malibu Canyon Road for about an hour.

Storm runoff caused minor street flooding in Thousand Oaks, “but nothing substantive,” said Ventura County spokeswoman Sandi Wells.

Roofers welcomed the inclement weather.

“I would say we’ve probably gotten 50% more calls because of the rain,” said Chris Keil, president of A1 All American Roofing in Northridge.

The rain also helped firefighters snuff out the remnants of a wind-driven blaze that charred 123 acres of brushy hillside near homes in the Lake Elsinore area of Riverside County.

Almost 200 firefighters, including a helicopter crew, fought the blaze, which broke out Sunday and briefly threatened several homes. The cause of the fire has not been determined.

Jeff House, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times, said Monday’s stormy weather resulted from at least a temporary shift in weather patterns.

For much of the winter, persistent high-pressure systems over the Pacific have blocked the southern migration of storms from the Gulf of Alaska. These storms have headed directly inland, over the Pacific Northwest.

While places like Seattle and Portland, Ore., have had lots of rain, Los Angeles is experiencing one of the driest winters on record.

During the last few days, however, the high pressure has retreated out to sea, allowing high-altitude jet stream winds to dip farther south and funnel Monday’s storm directly into Southern California.

By nightfall Monday, 0.45 of an inch of rain had fallen at the Los Angeles Civic Center, raising the total for the season--which runs from July 1 through June 30--to 4.78 inches. The normal total for the season on March 15 is 12.35 inches. Last year on that date, the season total was 23.59 inches.

Other daily rainfall totals as of 5 p.m. Monday included 0.51 of an inch in Van Nuys, 0.56 in Redondo Beach, 0.62 in Pasadena, 0.64 in Thousand Oaks, 0.67 in Long Beach, 0.69 in Culver City, 0.70 in Glendale, 0.79 in Burbank, 0.80 in Arcadia, 0.83 in Santa Barbara, 0.98 in Sepulveda Canyon, 1.85 inches in Santa Ynez and 2.51 inches in Lompoc.

The 5 p.m. snowfall totals included 4 inches at Mt. Wilson, 8 inches at Frasier Park, and close to a foot at some resorts in the San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains.

Times staff writer Michael Luo and correspondent Neda Raouf contributed to this report.

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Wet Monday

Monday morning’s storm dropped nearly a half-inch of rain in some parts of the county, but a quarter-inch was the more common accumulation. Even with that rain, though, the season total is well in arrears of a normal and nowhere close to last year’s deluge. Total rainfall in inches, for 24 hours ended 4 p.m.:

Anaheim: .26

Dana Point: .20

Fullerton: .47

Irvine: .28

Laguna Beach: .27

Lake Forest: .09

Newport Beach: .19

San Juan Capistrano: .24

Santa Ana: .26

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Season Totals

(Santa Ana)

This season to date: 5.57

Last season to date: 25.46

Normal to date: 10.24

Source: WeatherData