Flood fears fizzle as storm wanes

With the worst of the latest storm over, the National Weather Service lifted flood watches this morning in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties.

The watches, which began early Tuesday, focused on canyons and other areas at risk for mudslides after the recent wildfires. But no major flooding was reported overnight after the storm turned out to be more gentle than expected, the weather service said.

Nearly 4 inches of rainfall had been recorded in the Los Angeles County mountains as of this morning, said Jamie Meier, a meteorologist with the agency in Oxnard. Minor flooding occurred in some areas, including Malibu Canyon and Santa Barbara County, but there were no major mudslides.

“While we did get well over an inch [in downtown Los Angeles], we didn’t get intense rain. It was spaced out and it gave those areas time to settle,” Meier said. “This is exactly the kind of storm we wanted --slow and steady, good amounts to help with the fire danger, but slow enough to keep the threat of mudslides at bay.”

As of 4 a.m., she said, 1.14 inches of rain had fallen in downtown Los Angeles, the first time downtown has had an inch of rain in 24 hours since April 2006. The storm raised L.A. County’s total annual rainfall, which the weather service begins tracking July 1, to 3.34 inches, above the average of 2.85 inches for this time of year.

The storm also produced 3 to 6 inches of snow at elevations above 8,000 feet, according to Stuart Seto, a weather service weather specialist in Oxnard.

A snow advisory issued until 8 a.m. today was extended until noon for mountains higher than 6,500 feet in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, Seto said.

Though the rain is expected to taper off by noon, forecasters expect another small storm to arrive Thursday, bringing a 20% chance of rain. Those showers are expected to be much lighter, Meier said.

The early rains don’t mean this season will be wetter than normal, Meier said. The latest storm cruised down from the Gulf of Alaska, soaking up water over the Pacific before showering the coast. But last season, many of the storms that hit the area lost their moisture as they moved down the spine of the Sierra, bringing dry winds that only added to the fire risk.

The California Highway Patrol responded to a slew of weather-related accidents this morning and overnight, but none were major and none were blocking major roads as of 7 a.m., said Officer Francisco Villalobos. The Sepulveda Boulevard onramp to the eastbound 105 was closed because of flooding, but no other highways were blocked by storm water, he said.

The CHP responded to 280 collisions in L.A. County, many of them weather-related, from 5 p.m. Tuesday to 5 a.m. today, Villalobos said. During the same period last week, it handled 75 collisions.

Villalobos cautioned drivers not to become overconfident as the rain slows.

“That roadway is still wet out there. You still have to drive as if it were raining,” he said, particularly at freeway on- and offramps. “A lot of the incidents we’re seeing are at the onramps, offramps and transition roads, and what they have in common is they have curves. . . . People take those curves too fast and try to hit their brakes while they’re turning, and that causes a lot of people to lose control.”

molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com