Wet February Isn’t Over Yet; More Rain Expected Monday

It’s no El Nino, but Saturday’s heavy rains added to a wetter-than-average February across the Los Angeles region, forecasters said.

The Pacific storm is expected to drop up to 2 inches of rain by Monday night, though only two-tenths of an inch had been recorded in downtown Los Angeles by Saturday night. Nearly half an inch fell in Chatsworth, said Bruce Rockwell, a forecaster with the National Weather Service.

A funnel cloud touched down in Orange, snapping cables, tearing shingles from homes and ripping 200 square feet of roofing from a vacant business on Hariton Street, authorities said.

The land spout struck three separate places between 1:50 and 2:20 p.m., damaging at least three homes a few blocks west of Chapman University but injuring no one.

“It’s been raining like crazy,” Orange Police Lt. John Higley said.

The storm could unload more than a foot of snow in the local mountains, Rockwell said. Between 8 and 16 inches of snow was predicted for mountains above 6,000 feet. The weather service issued a winter storm warning in those areas.

By midafternoon, both Mountain High and Mt. Baldy ski resorts had recorded 6 inches of new snow. Moderate snow also was reported at Mt. Wilson. Southeast winds of 25 to 35 mph were forecast, which could produce gusts of snow and low visibility through today.

Temperatures along the coast and in the valleys were chilly, with lows in the mid-40s to low 50s. Heavy rain was expected today, with the thermometer hitting the high 50s.

There were plenty of fender-benders but no fatal traffic accidents on Los Angeles County freeways Saturday, California Highway Patrol Officer Charles Blair said. By 3 p.m., nearly 300 accidents had been reported, about 25% more than usually occur on dry days, he said.

In Encino, about 330 customers lost electricity for less than three hours because of a downed power line, said Lisa Tashiro, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Water and Power. It was not clear whether the storm was a factor in the outage, she said.

Winter rainfall has been above average, Rockwell said. In Chatsworth, average rainfall is about 3 1/2 inches in both January and February. This year, January saw more than double that--7 1/2 inches--and this month’s tally had exceeded 5 inches before the weekend’s rain.

Rockwell said the increase is probably nothing more than “normal variations of weather,” but noted that the early months of the year--always the wettest--have seen more rain than usual in recent years. The average rainfall totals are based on a 30-year span, he said.

The 1997-98 season--when El Nino lashed the coast for months--was one of the wettest on record, Rockwell said. Burbank recorded 15 1/2 inches of rain in February 1998, compared with 4.8 inches so far this month.

“Although it seems like we’re getting a lot of rain and it is more than normal, it’s not anywhere near what we saw during El Nino,” Rockwell said.

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Times staff writer Jack Leonard contributed to this story.