First Full Day of Spring Tells Tale of Wetter Than Average Winter

Steady rain and gusting winds Monday swept in the first full day of spring in the San Gorgonio Pass and punctuated the end of a wet winter season.

Following the wettest December since the National Weather Service started keeping records in 1878, the most recent storm helped ensure the current wet season was above average for Southern California, said Bill Patzert, an oceanographer and El Nino/La Nina forecaster for the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in La Canada-Flintridge.

"When June rolls around, marking the end of this cycle, we will be above average," Patzert said in a phone interview. "I Twittered Mother Nature this morning and thanked her for all the rainfall, even though she stiffed me on my forecasts.

"I called for a drier than normal winter," Patzert said. "It just shows you long-range forecasting's not for sissies."

Between 1 p.m. Sunday and 1 p.m. Monday, Beaumont received 1.25 inches of rain and Snow Creek south of Highway 111 received .89 inch, Jamie Moker of the National Weather Service said in a phone interview.

Snow fell below 3,000 feet in parts of the Pass just before noon. On Highway 243 above Banning, orange Caltrans trucks equipped with plows kept busy heading up and down the mountain. At lower elevations the truck drivers used their blades to clear rocks and gravel.

Higher up they dealt with snow. There was about 8 inches of snow on the ground in Idyllwild just after 2:30 p.m. Monday, a firefighter at the Idyllwild Fire Protection District said in a phone interview.

As of 2:45 p.m. Monday, chains or snow tires were required on the 243 from Lake Fulmer to Mountain Center, according to Caltrans.

More rain and snow for arid Southern California is a bonus any time, Patzert said.

"Whenever we get a good snowpack up at higher elevations nobody can complain about that," Patzert said. "We need all the water we can get."

The wet winter may be a boon to water vendors and managers, Moker said. But it may be a mixed blessing when fire season comes around, he said.

"For sure it moistens up all the vegetation right now and reduces the fire threat for a time," Moker said. "The other side is more vegetation grows after wetter seasons, and eventually all that extra vegetation will dry out and become fuels."

The vernal equinox marking official transition from winter to spring was at 4:21 p.m. Sunday, Moker said.

Rain and wind swept through the San Gorgonio Pass late Sunday and early Monday, and the same storm blanketed parts of the high mountains in fresh snow.

Late Sunday and early Monday, steady downpours drenched roads in Beaumont and Banning, and the California Highway Patrol reported at least a half-dozen collisions on Interstate 10 in the Pass between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m.