RAIN DELAY; SPRING STORM WREAKS HAVOC WITH DRIVERS.

Byline: Robert Monroe Staff Writer

Blame La Nina, again.

The record rainfall that arrived in Southern California on Monday is part of a weather system that will create unseasonably cold weather this week as two jet streams duel for supremacy over the region. It caused a rare cancellation of a Los Angeles Dodgers game and caused several crashes on local highways, including one that left two men dead.

The storm could bring rainfall totals to near-normal levels in the last kick of a wet season that meteorologists originally predicted would be anything but.

``It looks like we'll end up with 75 to 80 percent of our normal rainfall, but all of it came in a couple storms,'' said Bill Patzert, an ocean scientist at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge. ``It's what I call a little surprise, but not a surprise in a La Nina springtime.''

La Nina is a phenomenon in which tropical Pacific Ocean waters become unusually cold, leading to changes in global weather patterns.

Monday's storm was caused by a warm subtropical jet stream and a cold subartic jet stream zigzagging over the United States, creating volatile weather wherever they collided. In Southern California, it meant rain and a chance of snow in the mountains. Patzert predicted it will be more dangerous in the Midwest, where the collisions could spawn tornadoes.

Early Monday, National Weather Service forecasters said snow could fall as low as 5,000 feet in area mountains early this morning, but soon changed their predictions. Meteorologist Bill Hoffer said that warm air blowing from the south might hold the snow at bay.

``It's going to be iffy,'' he said.

But the rain is far heavier than normal. The combined months of April, May and June typically add only about three-quarters of an inch to Los Angeles' average annual total of 14.77 inches. Monday brought 1.03 of an inch of rain to the Los Angeles Civic Center by 5 p.m., and additional rain in the evening brought the total to 1.24 inches, breaking the record of 0.9 inch for the date set in 1903, officials said.

With Monday's first wave came several crashes.

Two elderly men believed to be brothers died in a three-car crash at 2:40 p.m. on the southbound Golden State Freeway, north of Magic Mountain Parkway. The men were in a pickup truck that hit a van head-on as it spun out of control entering the freeway at Rye Canyon Road.

``With the down pour of rain, people are coming onto the Rye Canyon on-ramp too fast and onto the freeway where they spin out,'' said Mike Granskog, manager of a gas station just off the freeway.

The collision prompted the closure of the southbound lanes of the busy Golden State Freeway, California Highway Patrol Officer Karen Faciane said.

Although the collision occurred on a rain-slicked highway, CHP officers were unable to say whether rain was a factor.

Nearly two inches of rain fell in the Santa Clarita area, resulting in so many emergency calls that additional fire and Highway Patrol officers were called to the area to help out.

In Van Nuys, four people were injured, one critically, after an MTA bus and at least two other vehicles crashed into one another in the 17300 block of Sherman Way about 11 a.m. Monday, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said.

A 35-year-old woman in a passenger vehicle was critically injured and transported to Northridge Hospital Medical Center, Humphrey said. Three other people received minor to moderate injuries. One was taken to Northridge Hospital Medical Center, the other two to Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys.

Fifteen passengers on the bus left the scene before paramedics arrived, Humphrey said.

``It was raining and the roadway was wet,'' Humphrey said.

In Ventura County, the CHP handled three big rig crashes within a matter of minutes on the Ventura Freeway, a dispatcher said. The most serious occurred in Thousand Oaks, where a big rig collided with four vehicles at about 2:17 p.m., closing the Rancho Road on-ramp and all northbound lanes until just before 4 p.m.

In the Glendora area Monday, a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department rescue helicopter pulled two boys out of Big Dalton Wash, a flood control channel where rain-swollen waters were clocked at 30 miles per hour.

The rain brought mixed reviews from area farmers and garden specialists. Ventura County strawberry grower Gloria Tamai said heavy rainfall in the middle of harvesting season is unwelcome. Too much water takes away the strawberries' sweetness. Tamai, who runs Channel Islands Harvester near Oxnard, said she'll have to wait for them to dry out again to assess the damage.

``It's going to take awhile to get it back,'' she said.

But the staff at Green Thumb Nursery in Canoga Park is bracing for an onslaught of business once the rain clears up. The natural watering should make most blooms open up, nurseryman Cal Wright said.

``All your native plants, if you get too much rain, it's not good,'' Wright said. ``But other than that, I think everything's going to be fine.''

The Dodgers game was called at 2 p.m. Monday, only the 17th rainout in Dodger Stadium's 39 years.

- Staff Writers Orith Goldberg, Lisa Mascaro and Lisa Van Proyen contributed to this report.

CAPTION(S):

4 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- color) Traffic on the Golden State Freeway crawls past a three-car crash Monday that left two dead after a pickup truck hit a van head-on near Rye Canyon Road.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer

(2 -- color) Flooded intersections, such as this one along Canoga Avenue, made driving conditions less than perfect Monday when heavy rains soaked the region.

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News

(3 -- 4) At left, Los Angeles city firefighters tend to victims from a crash involving an MTA bus and at least two other vehicles in the 17300 block of Sherman Way during Monday's storm. Four people were injured, 1 critically. The bike was on the front of the bus. Above, Los Angeles County Sheriff Paramedics prepare to rescue 16-year-old Daniel Rivera, right in water, and Dave Flores, 13, left in water, from the Big Dalton Was in Covina.

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News

Greg Anderson/Staff Photographer

Box: RAINFALL TOTALS