Chill Eases Its Icy Grip but Effects Are Still Felt

Although sunshine bathed California on Christmas, chilly temperatures gripping the state for a sixth day left thousands of homeowners coping with frozen water pipes and farmers tabulating freeze damage to crops.

“It was a record-breaking cold system,” Jerry Steiger of the National Weather Service said Tuesday in Los Angeles. “Most of the cold air now is moving eastward. . . . It looks like we’re going to warm up.” Temperatures plummeted to record lows in some cities again on Tuesday. Sacramento Airport’s 22-degree reading broke the record 27-degree low reached on Christmas Day 1982, and the 22 degrees in Bakersfield was the coldest Dec. 25 since a 24-degree reading in 1937.

Other record lows included 35 degrees in San Francisco, 29 at Moffett Field and 34 at the Alameda Naval Air Station.

The high temperature at the Los Angeles Civic Center Tuesday was “a balmy 68,” said Steve Burback, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times.

He predicted a high of 70 degrees for today, with light winds, and a low tonight of about 40 degrees. Thursday should be a few degrees warmer, he said.

The cold snap cracked thousands of water pipes, leaving about 12,000 people in the Santa Cruz Mountains without water.

“It’s a real pain,” said Sophie Russell, 61, of Ben Lomond, who has been out of water since temperatures plummeted to 10 degrees Saturday night. She was among the 75% of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District’s customers expected to be without water until today.

A warming trend was predicted for the rest of the week, but agricultural officials said it was too late for crops damaged by the frigid air mass dubbed the “Arctic Express.”