Shivering Front Brings Touches of Snow, Rain

Chilling blasts of Arctic air continued to ride through portions of Southern California on Thursday, dusting the mountains with snow overnight, dropping light rain in other areas and prompting a freeze warning for inland areas.

Two to four inches of snow fell in the San Gabriel, San Bernardino and Tehachapi mountains, said meteorologist Marty McKewon of WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times.

“There were blizzard conditions in the Tehachapi Mountains,” McKewon said, “and there was zero visibility at times.”

Warnings were issued to motorists, but Interstate 5--a major route to the San Joaquin Valley--was not closed, officials said.

It did not snow in Malibu, but in Santa Maria near the coast, snow fell for the first time in more than 40 years. Weather forecasters said the white stuff had not fallen in that area of Santa Barbara County since 1942, but Santa Maria Airport Manager Dan Hoback said he recalled a dusting in 1947.

“I was in the third grade when it fell,” Hoback said. “We all left school and went outside to play in the snow.”

Heavy snow also fell in the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada on Thursday, although the snowfall did not near the 15 inches that accumulated on some peaks in the area last week, WeatherData forecaster Steve Burback said.

“Most of the activity is in the Sierra Nevada,” Burback said. “The temperatures in the mountain ranges will be in the teens.”

The storm was a boon for ski resorts, which had sorely needed a decent snowfall.

“We got about a foot of new snow,” said Pam Murphy, a spokeswoman for Mammoth Mountain ski resort. “We are running four ski lifts now. Friday we will run 10 lifts. We will run 13 for the weekend.”

Most resorts in the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains expected to be in operation by the weekend.

Scattered rain showers were reported over a wide area of the Southland, but amounts were minimal. Precipitation included 0.60 of an inch of rain and snow at Big Bear Lake, 0.28 of an inch in San Juan Capistrano, 0.20 in Beaumont, 0.12 in Avalon on Santa Catalina Island, and 0.02 in Lancaster and Long Beach.

The Los Angeles Civic Center still has not received any rain this month and, if it does not rain by the new year, we will have the second driest July 1 to Dec. 31 period since rainfall records began in 1877, the National Weather Service said.

So far only .21 of an inch has been recorded downtown since July 1. The only other similar period with less rain was in 1962, when .12 of an inch fell.

A state official said the rains and snow--generated by the storm front that blustered in from the northwest--would have little impact on the drought gripping the region.

“If we get normal weather henceforth, we could wind up with a little bit more water than last year,” said Maurice Roos, the chief hydrologist of the state Department of Water Resources. “If we continue at this pace, it’ll be exceedingly dry and worse than last year.”

Roos described the current drought situation and the prospects for relief as “kind of grim.”

Unsettled conditions were expected to continue in the Southland through today, the first day of winter, with the possibility of showers in some areas of the parched Los Angeles Basin, McKewon said.

The storm kept temperatures well below average. The high at the Los Angeles Civic Center on Thursday was 55 degrees, 13 degrees below the normal high, and only 4 degrees above the lowest maximum for date, set in 1909, the NWS said.

The overnight low was 45, three degrees below normal for the date and 10 degrees warmer than the record, 35, set in 1887.

Forecasters said high temperatures will remain in the 50s in the Los Angeles area for several days. Overnight lows along the coast should be in the upper 30s to mid-40s, and in the upper 20s to mid-30s in the inland valleys, where a freeze warning was issued and growers and residents were advised to protect sensitive outdoor plants.

“We’re going to see some major (citrus and avocado) crop damage,” said Ron Hamilton of the Weather Service office in Riverside, which monitors agricultural conditions in Southern California.

Agriculture experts pointed out that the orange crop is maturing late, with as much as 75% of the crop still on the trees. Avocado growers have suffered freeze losses for four consecutive years.

“We won’t be seeing any warming trend through Christmas,” McKewon said.