Forecasters Find Glimmer Amid Flurry of Downpours

Blue sky is expected to break through the cloud cover this afternoon after Wednesday’s heavy rainstorm caused a string of car crashes and collapsed a sodden ceiling in a Costa Mesa pie factory.

A stream of fender-benders and solo-vehicle spin-outs caused mostly minor injuries throughout the day, and flooding closed the slow lane of the northbound San Diego Freeway at Seal Beach Boulevard for several hours.

“It started raining and got real busy,” CHP Officer Raul Malfavon said of a rash of accidents that popped up on his computer screen when the showers turned heavy about 1 p.m.

But the storm’s cruelest act of whimsy was the sudden flattening of 120 key lime pies at McCarp Cakes in Costa Mesa.

“It was unbelievable,” said co-owner Shannon Carpenter, whose business sat in 6 inches of water. “It came down in three large chunks . . . the second one hitting one of my employees on her back as she was reaching for a trash can from one of the flooded areas.”

The employee suffered scratches on her hand but no serious injuries, Carpenter said. Another piece of ceiling fell on a rack of pies--the business’ specialty--and the third piece fell on some electrical breakers. By about 2 p.m., employees said they were wading in ankle-deep water and the rain was still pouring in.

Carpenter’s grandmother showed up with dry socks and her father-in-law brought a new drainage pipe, which firefighters helped him install, while a roofer “fashioned some temporary drainage plugs” for the roof, Carpenter said.

“Many of the employees are going home to get dry and then coming right back here tonight,” she said. “We have about 600 pies to make still.”

But for some other businesses, the relentless rain was good news.

At Burberry’s Limited in South Coast Plaza, business took an upward turn as drenched shoppers dashed in to drop some cash on the famed rain gear.

“They’ll run in for umbrellas and even our trench coats,” said assistant manager Colleen Blumenberg. “They’ll finally decide they’ve gone long enough without one.”

The deluge dropped nearly three-quarters of an inch of water in some areas of Orange County, said John Sherwin, a spokesman for WeatherData Inc., the Wichita, Kan., firm that provides forecasts for The Times.

By 4 p.m. Wednesday, .72 of an inch of rain had fallen on Santa Ana, he said. Anaheim got .40 of an inch of rain, and Dana Pont logged more than half an inch as the storm moved south.

While temperatures remained unseasonably low in some inland areas, a rise in temperatures in coastal areas accompanied the storm.

Snow that had fallen on Santiago Peak in the Cleveland National Forest late Monday began melting early Wednesday into slosh, said Mel Newman, an environmental resources specialist for the county’s Environmental Management Agency.

Orange County high temperatures reached 63 in Dana Point Wednesday and 58 in Santa Ana. But the relatively warm temperatures were preceded by a Canadian cold front and low snow levels that dipped to 2,500 feet in the high desert.

Palmdale and Lancaster saw snow flurries Wednesday, as did Las Vegas, Sherwin said. Administrators at Antelope Valley Union High School District sent students home shortly after noon because of the weather. And fun-seekers headed with a variety of sledding equipment to Mt. Baldy, where the snow cover held.

Locally, however, temperatures climbed.

“We had a push of moisture coming in from the Pacific and that air is warmer,” he said. “As more of the moisture moved inland, the colder air was eroded.”

Today’s forecast calls for morning showers, lingering through the afternoon in the foothills. But the cloud cover should break and the sun may even shine by afternoon, Sherwin said.

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Wetter Winter

Nearly three-fourths of an inch of rain from Wednesday’s storm increased Santa Ana’s seasonal total past the one-foot mark--more than twice the normal rainfall. Amounts around the county for the 24-hour period ending at 4 p.m. Wednesday and the Santa Ana seasonal comparison:

Anaheim: .40

Dana Point: .56

Laguna Beach: .30

Lake Forest: .62

San Juan Capistrano: .03

Santa Ana: .72

Santa Ana Seasonal Data Season to date: 12.26

Last season to date: 1.47

Normal to date: 5.13

Source: WeatherData Inc.