A blustery spring storm doused the San Diego area with on-again, off-again showers Friday, bringing welcome precipitation ahead of the warm and dry months to come.
The mild low-pressure system out of the west, which moved into the region Thursday, delivered more than an inch of moisture in some areas before beginning to weaken and move out of the area this afternoon, according to the National Weather Service.
Over a 24-hour period ending at 4 p.m., the bands of dark clouds dropped 1.1 inches of rain on Otay Mountain, 1.07 along El Camino del Norte; 0.8 in the Palomar area and Pine Hills; 0.76 in La Jolla; 0.71 in Julian and at Brown Field airport; 0.7 in Elfin Forest; 0.68 at San Marcos Landfill; 0.67 in Smuggler's Gulch; 0.64 on Volcan Mountain; and 0.63 in Goat Canyon.
Other tallies included 0.59 of an inch at Tijuana Estuary; 0.55 in San Ysidro; 0.52 in Point Loma; 0.51 in University Heights; 0.5 at Montgomery Field; 0.49 in Mission Valley; 0.48 in Encinitas; 0.46 in Barona, City Heights, Granite Hills and Lemon Grove; 0.45 in Flinn Springs and at Miramar Lake; 0.44 in Harbison Canyon; 0.43 at Lindbergh Field; 0.4 in Alpine and in Linda Vista; 0.39 in Chula Vista; 0.37 in Santee; 0.36 in Lakeside; 0.33 in Poway; 0.29 in Oceanside; 0.19 in Carlsbad; 0.16 in Valley Center; 0.14 in Fallbrook; and 0.06
in Del Mar.
On the downside, the cloudbursts also ushered in some typical rainy-day traffic headaches. Between midnight and 3:30 p.m., the California Highway Patrol logged 250 accidents on the county's freeways and rural routes, compared with the roughly 140 crashes the agency responds to over an entire day of fair
weather.
Scattered showers were expected to continue overnight across the county and, to a lesser extent, Saturday, according to forecasters. Sunday will begin a period of at least a week of sunny and dry local conditions, meteorologists predicted.
