Waterlogged Angelenos Long for Sunshine

Another dreary day in paradise.

If it rains again today, as forecasters expect, it will be the seventh day in a row that the sunny Southland has been all that it’s not supposed to be. Gray, chilly and wet.

The mountains have been smothered by cloud banks, the beaches bikini-free and the swimming pools lonely.

“Enough is enough. We’re ready to see the sun again,” said Pasadena resident Beverly Slocum, expressing the withdrawal pangs that many Southern Californians experience when they don’t get their daily fix of warmth and brightness.

The rainfall broke records Monday. In Pasadena, Torrance and Woodland Hills and on Mt. Wilson, it hadn’t rained so much on that date since 1983. Sunday’s downtown Los Angeles rainfall washed away a record that had stood since 1958.

The skies dropped 8.87 inches of rain on downtown Los Angeles during February, less than the 13.68 inches that drenched the city the same month in 1998, the year of El Nino, but well above the norm.

In the last two months the city was pelted with nearly 14.5 inches, just half an inch short of the norm for the entire season, which runs from July 1 through June 30. As of Wednesday afternoon, 15.66 inches had fallen to date this season.

It has also been raining and snowing in Northern California, adding to a snowpack that has been at worrisomely low levels.

Wednesday measurements in the American River watershed of the Sierra Nevada put the snowpack at 77% of normal for that location. Across the range, state water resources spokesman Jeff Cohen said the figure was 75% of normal.

Though the water content of the snow--critical to runoff that feeds Southern California’s water supplies and hydroelectric plants--increased significantly in February, water resources staff members doubt that it will reach normal levels this spring.

“It’s lagging because the early dryness of the season was very severe, and we’re just kind of running out of winter,” Cohen said. “It sure doesn’t look as bad as it did Feb. 1, but there is still a large potential for some reductions in water delivery.”

Rainfall in San Francisco is about an inch below average for this time of year.

National Weather Service meteorologist Bruce Rockwell said the rain in the Los Angeles Basin should stop today--for at least a couple of days. Another storm may move in at the beginning of next week.

Times staff writer Hang Nguyen contributed to this story.