Dry Weekend a Surprise : Rain Clouds Give County the Cold Shoulder

The weekend forecasts had called for heavy rains, showers and thunderstorms. And indeed the clouds did hunker low over Orange County. So where was the rain?

“We said possible, not likely� rainfall, said Mike Smith, a meteorologist at WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times.

“Computer models tended to indicate that everything would come together for a nice rainfall,� added Mark McKinley, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

On Friday, the National Weather Service was predicting two to three inches of rain in the foothills and mountains of Orange County, and an inch or so at the beaches over the weekend.

As it turned out, though, “an upper low (pressure system) stayed stationary,� McKinley said. “These have strange behaviors of their own and are difficult to forecast.�

A low-pressure zone 700 miles offshore was to have aimed a tropical moisture front from Hawaii straight into Southern California. According to Smith, some of the heavy rains did come, but they just missed Orange County by 50 miles or so, hitting Los Angeles and areas to the north.

That made for clearer skies Sunday over much of Orange County and daytime temperatures ranging from a high of 82 degrees in Santa Ana to 73 in Newport Beach. Lows dipped into the mid-50s in El Toro and San Juan Capistrano.

Meanwhile, the low pressure zone with its heavy thundershowers has petered out about 100 miles from the coast, Smith said. In addition, the low pressure zone fragmented into a “couple of weak low centers, instead of one strong one,� and the upper stratosphere winds became “disorganized,� he said, making forecasting difficult.

“When the weather is well organized, we can forecast with high confidence,� he said.

Undaunted, however, Smith and National Weather Service forecasters on Sunday were again predicting at least a slight chance of rain as early as tonight or Tuesday, following variable high cloudiness and temperatures reaching into the low 70s today.