Latest Rains Fail to Put End to Drought in O.C. : Weather: Sierra Nevada, source of much of area's water supply, continues to lag in snowpack, runoff.

By JOANNA M. MILLER and CARLA RIVERA

March 3, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The latest storm front to thunder through Southern California dumped more than an inch of rain on parts of Orange County on Monday, but failed to end the drought locally, officials said.

However, rainfall totals led one official Monday to declare an end to the drought in Ventura and southern Santa Barbara counties, spreading hopes along the drenched California coast that restrictions on water use may soon ease elsewhere.

But state authorities, while heartened by the first chink in the armor of the six-year drought, said it is too early to pronounce the dry spell over statewide.

In one of the first localized declarations, National Weather Service meteorologist Terry Schaeffer said the recent heavy storms had dropped enough rain in Ventura and southern Santa Barbara counties to call the drought over there.

Parts of the Ventura County region have received as much as 130% of normal rainfall for the year, Schaeffer said. Reservoirs that supply western Ventura County and southern Santa Barbara County are approaching pre-drought levels and ground-water basins are on the rise, he added.

“For all practical purposes, that meets my criteria for the end of the drought,” said Schaeffer, whose Santa Paula office recorded 37 inches of rain during the last 12 months and 22 inches of rain since Oct. 1.

Rainfall totals in Orange County are also slightly above normal. The county gets an average of about 12 inches of rain per year. By Monday, 10.10 inches had fallen in Santa Ana since July, while the average for that period is 9.4 inches.

But Orange County is in worse shape than it otherwise would be because of the dependence of South County cities--whose ground-water supplies are salt-laden--on imported water.

Much of that comes from the State Water Project aqueduct which brings water from the Sierra Nevada, which is still plagued by drought. Snowpack and runoff there are below normal.

“In Orange County, the local drought is over, but when you recognize that at least 50% of our water is needed from outside the local area, we’re still in a water shortage here,” said Stanley Sprague, general manager of the Municipal Water District of Orange County.

March is traditionally one of the wettest months of the year, and more storms have been predicted for Southern California. Another was expected to hit Orange County by Wednesday with a third threatening to move in by the weekend, said meteorologist Mark Bogner of WeatherData Inc., a firm that provides weather information for The Times.

But Bogner said the storms are not expected to carry as much rainfall as the storms earlier this month that caused flooding in Orange and Los Angeles counties.

“This is the kind of rainfall we like to get, not so heavy that it causes flooding but heavy enough that it does some good,” said Bogner.

The storms Sunday night and Monday produced as much as 1.10 inches of rain in Lake Forest and as little as .55 of an inch in Laguna Beach. Santiago Peak had 1.06 inches, while Anaheim, Yorba Linda, Newport Beach and San Juan Capistrano all received .83 of an inch of rain.

A few minor power outages of seconds’ duration were reported in Huntington Beach, but otherwise the storms caused no reported damage.

Officials also reported no flooding, mudslides or road obstructions.

“The rain has really been too light and sporadic to cause problems, and (flood control channels) seemed to work fine today,” said William Reiter, manager of the County Environmental Management Agency’s public works division.

In one of the more serious traffic incidents, a Rancho Santa Margarita man suffered a concussion and facial cuts when he was thrown from his car after striking an oncoming car on El Toro Road near Summerwood Avenue.

Dean Masao Harvey, 27, reportedly lost control of his Acura and hit a car driven by Daniel Keith Novak of Dove Canyon. Novak and his sister, Heidi Marie Novak, 29, were treated for minor injuries.

California Highway Patrol spokesman Ken Daily said Harvey was thrown from his car because he was not wearing a seat belt.

Meanwhile, state officials were buoyed by the news from Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, where ground-water basins and reservoirs have finally begun to inch upward.

In Los Angeles, rescuers called off a search Monday evening for a boy seen standing in the rain-swollen San Gabriel River after deciding that he must have gotten out of the water by himself.

About 100 Long Beach and Los Angeles County firefighters and Orange County rescue workers combed about a seven-mile stretch of the river from Cerritos southward with boats, and three helicopters flew overhead for an hour, said Capt. Bob Moll of the Long Beach Fire Department.

“We never found anything so we’re assuming he got out,” Moll said.

In Santa Barbara, officials said the City Council is expected today to declare the drought emergency over in that city, where a combination of reservoir storage and a new desalination plant now guarantee enough supplies to meet demands for at least three years.

The last of Santa Barbara’s drought restrictions, which had residents cutting back by 45% a year ago, is expected to be rescinded today, city officials said.

“It’s been a progressively improving picture,” said Sandra Lizarraga, deputy city administrator.

Officials in other areas, however, were cautious about the chances of rolling back conservation measures or declaring an end to the drought statewide.

“It’s a hopeful sign,” said Maurice Roos, chief hydrologist for the state Department of Water Resources, referring to the latest series of storms.

“But it took a long time for us to get into the drought and for storage to become so depleted. It will probably take a long time for us to get out of it.”

The largest reservoirs that supply water for Southern California through the State Water Project are at less than 60% of average levels for this time of year, officials said.

And rainfall statewide is 75% of normal, said Dean Thompson, specialist at the State Drought Center in the Department of Water Resources.

“It’s ironic that the area of the state that should be out of the drought isn’t because they depend on an outside water source,” he said of the region including Los Angeles County.

In Northern California, officials were cautious about the impact of the recent heavy rains.

Marin County authorities, who called for drastic cutbacks in water usage last year, said they will wait until April before considering whether to ease up on conservation measures.

February brought precipitation 150% above normal in the Sierra Nevada, which supplies the runoff for the state’s system of reservoirs, pipes and pumps, Roos said.

But the area needed double the normal precipitation for February and double for March to produce normal runoff levels for the year, he said.

“We got about 12 inches of ‘precip’ and we needed 30 inches,” he said. “That did happen last March, but we’re not anticipating it two years in a row.”

The State Water Project is only guaranteeing delivery of 20% of the amount of water requested by cities and water districts throughout the state, Roos said.

Times staff writers Thuan Le and Marla Cone contributed to this story.

O.C. Storm Totals

For the past 24 hours, as of 5:50 p.m. Monday:

City & Inches

Anaheim: 0.83

Brea: 0.63

Corona Del Mar: 0.75

Costa Mesa: 0.63

Cypress: 0.63

Fullerton: 0.79

Garden Grove: 0.79

Huntington Beach: 0.67