1st Rain in 6 Months Shuts Coast Highway : Drought: Water basins have dropped nearly to the record low levels of 1946-51. The county would need 30 inches to make up the deficit.

A cold Alaskan front brought rain to Ventura County for the first time in nearly six months Monday afternoon and evening, forcing the closure of a stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway and causing isolated power outages.

The rain is expected to taper off by this morning, and temperatures should be cool through today with a chance of a light frost tonight, but temperatures should warm up for a sunny Thanksgiving holiday, National Weather Service meteorologist Terry Schaeffer said.

As of 9 p.m., Ventura County Flood Control rain gauges showed that 0.32 inches of rain had fallen in Ojai, 0.29 inches in Ventura, 0.28 inches in Camarillo, 0.16 inches in Thousand Oaks and 0.08 inches in Fillmore.

Mudslides forced the closure at 8 p.m. of a four-mile stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway in both directions from the Ventura-Los Angeles County line north to Sycamore State Beach, according to the California Highway Patrol.

The CHP reported about a dozen rain-related accidents on Ventura County highways, none serious.

The storm also knocked out electricity to about 2,200 Southern California Edison customers in east Ventura at 9:30 p.m. and to about 250 customers in the Somis area from 7 to 9 p.m., a utility spokesman said. An earlier outage affecting 2,400 customers in the Casitas Springs and Oak View area between 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. was not weather-related, said Mike Montoya, the utility’s area manager.

Police reported downed lines and sporadic outages throughout the county. Residue that collected on power lines over the recent dry months also caused visible arcing of the electrical currents on many lines, Montoya said.

“All the dirt and dust on the insulation causes the electricity to seek a path to ground,” Montoya said.

Chances for more rain after the weekend may improve if a new system moves in, Schaeffer said. “The public may think fair weather will make a beautiful holiday, but for farmers it would be beautiful if we got two or three inches of rain.”

Monday marked the beginning of the ninth dry week of the so-called rainy season that began Oct. 1--and which had left no measurable rainfall in the county before Monday.

County hydrologists say the last measurable rainfall in the county was May 28, when .74 inches fell in Ventura and .94 inches was recorded in the hills above Ojai.

The last significant rainfall before that came in February, when 1.29 inches fell in Ventura and 3.32 inches at the county’s measuring station near Matilija Dam, said county hydrographer William Minger.

“The whole year was pretty much a flop,” he said.

Normal rainfall at the Ventura County Government Center is 16.09 inches a year. By this time in a normal rain year, the county would already have received two to three inches in Ventura and more in the hills above Ojai and in the Piru area, said Dolores Taylor, senior county hydrologist.

“This rain won’t solve any of the drought problems,” she said of the Monday night showers. “We’ll be lucky if it washes the goop off the streets and lets a little soak into the ground.”

Even if Monday’s storm had cracked open the sky with torrents of water, it would not have been enough to reverse the damage done by four solid years of drought, meteorologists said.

The county’s underground water basins have dropped nearly to the record low levels of the great drought of 1946-51, Taylor said. The county would need about 30 inches right now to make up the deficit of past years, Taylor said.

“It’s getting worse and worse,” she said. “The more we keep pumping water out of the ground without replenishment, the more we are mining the water supplies of the future.”

The county gets about 20% of its water supply from state water through the Calleguas Municipal Water District, which supplies Moorpark, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Camarillo, Port Hueneme and Oxnard with all or part of their water supplies.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which supplies Calleguas, will decide today whether to require 10% reductions from its water users in the year ahead. District directors will also decide whether to fine those member districts that do not conserve, a spokesman said.

Piru, Fillmore and Santa Paula depend on ground-water pumping for water. The county agency that regulates pumping has already passed an ordinance requiring a 25% reduction in pumping over 20 years.

Ventura uses both ground water and Casitas Municipal Water District supplies.

Lake Casitas, which supplies the district, is only about half full. That is the lowest the lake has been since 1968, said Richard Hajas, Casitas assistant general manager. Casitas has placed a one-year moratorium on new connections and expansion of use by existing customers.

A good soaking would help Casitas and other districts dependent on ground water by reducing the immediate demand from growers and residents, Hajas said.

The National Weather Service’s 90-day extended forecast that predicts conditions through the end of January has called for a normal rain year.

Schaeffer said the 90-day predictions can be expected to be accurate about 60% of the time. But he said the county needs two to three normal rain years and a solid 25 or 30 inches in a 12-month period to break the drought cycle.

“But if we can get a little bit of dust off the trees with this rain it will at least let photosynthesis work a little better,” he said.

Christopher Pummer contributed to this story.

VENTURA CO. RAINFALL

Rainfall (in inches) at County Government Center in Ventura for Oct. 1 to Sept. 30. Normal is 16.09 inches. Source: Ventura County Flood Control District