Mother Nature Casts Wet Blanket on O.C.

Saturday’s rainstorm didn’t pack the wallop predicted, but Southern California skiers and winter resorts, suffering through one of the warmest and driest seasons in years, rejoiced over the first significant snowfall to blanket local mountains.

Several inches of fresh powder were reported in forest towns from Wrightwood to Big Bear, and more is expected in the days ahead as a series of Pacific storms rolls over the region.

“We’re in the game now. This is excellent,” said Darren Moraco of Victorville, who was skiing the newly covered slopes at Big Bear.

Mountain businesses were hoping for a wave of visitors today, after months of light visitation.

“Finally, the season begins on Feb. 12,” said Greg Ralph, marketing director at the Bear Mountain ski resort in Big Bear. “Everybody is in a much better mood now in this town.”

Saturday’s storm was far milder than the lightning, thunder and up to 4-inch drenching that forecasters had anticipated.

Rainfall totals ranged from less than a quarter-inch in Dana Point to nearly an inch in La Habra.

A weather front could drop an additional half-inch of rain early today and this afternoon, followed by lighter showers Monday from the southern edge of a Northern California storm.

The predawn downpour Saturday caused minor flooding, scattered power outages and dozens of traffic accidents in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

In Lake Forest, an unidentified motorist was killed late Friday when his speeding Ford 350 van skidded out of control, smashed into a tree and burst into flames. The driver’s dog also died in the blaze, said sheriff’s Sgt. Bob Wren.

Workers remained on alert in Arcadia, Glendale and La Canada Flintridge, where rain-soaked hillsides threatened several homes.

Concrete barricades and 6,000 sandbags were placed near 16 Arcadia homes in the path of a potential mudslide. City crews helped save one home on Highland Vista Drive from mud flowing off land where a fire burned away vegetation in December.

“If we have a hard rain, there’s certainly going to be slides,” said Rita Kurth, a city spokeswoman. “We can’t save all the homes, but we can protect [some].”

Almost 2 inches of rain in San Francisco snarled flights arriving from Los Angeles International Airport. Poor visibility in the Bay Area shut down one of two runways, forcing United Airlines, a major carrier on the busy route, to cancel 31 flights Friday and Saturday. In bad weather, “our arrival rate gets cut in half,” said San Francisco International Airport duty manager Dan D’Innocenti.

Intermittent downpours were expected in San Francisco until at least Thursday.

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Periodic rain will continue in Orange County throughout the week, said meteorologist Wes Etheredge of WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times.

“The early part of the [Southern California] winter was incredibly dry,” he said, noting that Pacific storms shifted toward the Northwest as part of a La Nina system.

“We’ve been seeing a sort of decay of that . . . over the past three weeks,” with fronts lining up over Central and Southern California, he said. “It’s just a more typical pattern.”

But there is no telling how long it will last, he added.

In the mountains, they can only hope.

“It’s been a very long winter. . . . We’ve been in T-shirt weather up here,” said Diane Jorgenson, a Wrightwood resident employed at the Mountain High ski resort.

Only dustings of snow had been received before Saturday, and ski resorts have been surviving on artificial snow.

Estimates varied from resort to resort, but the Saturday snowfall averaged about 6 inches in local mountains, Etheredge said.

An additional 4 inches to 8 inches was expected today as snow levels dropped as low as 3,300 feet, he said.

That still is a fraction of the typical season, when 65 inches of snow fall in the San Gabriel Mountains, Etheredge noted.

And spring is fast approaching.

“Better late than never,” said Ralph, the ski resort marketing manager.

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Times staff writers Jack Leonard, Zanto Peabody and Indraneel Sur and correspondent Monte Morin contributed to this story.