Rain and wind make for soggy shoppers

Marisa O’Neil

Cold, rainy weather hit Southern California for the second weekend in

a row, making holiday shopping a potentially soggy experience.

Grey skies started dropping drizzly rain Saturday afternoon and

temperatures hovered in the mid-50s.

The rain was expected to continue overnight and drop one-quarter

to one-half inch of the wet stuff before moving on today, National

Weather Service forecaster Brad Doyle said.

But the inclement weather did little to dampen the holiday spirits

of most shoppers.

Even though the rain sent many folks at the outdoor Orange County

Marketplace scurrying to their cars, most had armfuls of bags to show

for their excursion.

Some, like Long Beach resident Jessica Benman, improvised a way to

stay relatively dry. Her friend, Angela Slack, laughed hysterically

as she watched Benman, pregnant with her third child, fashion a rain

bonnet out of a plastic shopping bag.

“I’m a married woman,” Benman laughed. “I don’t have to impress

nobody.”

The shopping day had started out cold, but the rain caught them

off-guard, Slack said.

“But it was worth it,” she said as she toted her purchases to the

car.

Saturday’s storm dipped in from the northwest, dropping more than

a foot of snow in the Sierra Nevada and delaying thousands of

travelers at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport.

Newport-Mesa will get off easier, but still faces atypically

chilly overnight lows in the 30s and 40s, Doyle said. Highs will make

it up to the upper 50s to mid 60s today and Monday, according to the

National Weather Service.

Winds will be slightly breezy today with some gusts up to 35 miles

per hour, Doyle said. Higher gusts on Monday may blow up to 40 miles

per hour.

It’s the second weekend in a row that cold temperatures have

settled in the area. Last weekend’s storm brought a record low

temperature of 57 degrees to Newport Beach. This storm should be a

little weaker than that one, Doyle said.

Temperatures will start edging up into the mid to upper 60s later

this week, according to the National Weather Service.