Wintry Conditions Continue to Prevail Despite Spring’s Arrival

Though spring had arrived, the weather stayed wintry in Ventura County on Thursday, with frost warnings, blustery winds and forecasts for as many as three more rainstorms over the next week.

A storm system from the Gulf of Alaska on Saturday evening is expected to drop an inch of rain in coastal areas and three inches or more inland. That storm is expected to abate Sunday, but will be followed by two more storms of equal or greater strength Tuesday and Friday, said Steve Burback, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., a nationwide forecasting firm.

“There won’t be much of a break between them,” he said.

Burback, who tracks weather across California, said Ventura County has received the heaviest rainfall in the state in recent weeks, aside from the mountain counties.

On the first full day of spring Thursday, the evidence of changing seasons could be seen in brown hillsides turning soft green, and on the snowy face of the Topatopa Mountains in Los Padres National Forest, which received an additional two feet of snow overnight Wednesday.

On the upper reaches of Mt. Pinos, in the northeast corner of Ventura County, the snow is up to 10 feet deep, said Sheriff’s Deputy Gary Hess of Lockwood Valley.

“It’s the most snow I’ve seen up here in three years, and I can’t believe how wet and heavy it is,” Hess said. He said he counted 22 downed power poles in one area of Lockwood Valley where phone service was knocked out for two days.

Terry Schaeffer, an agricultural meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Santa Paula, issued frost warnings for early this morning in the county’s inland valleys.

Strawberry growers in the Las Posas and Santa Rosa valleys were advised to protect their crops with sprinklers and wind machines from temperatures as low as 29 degrees. That’s three degrees lower than strawberries can withstand, Schaeffer said.

After five years of drought--and a bleak rain season earlier this year--water experts are calling the storms a monumental blessing. Within three weeks, total rainfall for the season, which began Oct. 1, has risen from record low to normal levels in most areas of the county.

Although the latest storm missed the coast Wednesday night, Schaeffer said some rain fell in northern and eastern Ventura County. Winds gusted up to 25 m.p.h. Thursday.

“This is miraculous that we get this much rain this late in the season to help alleviate our dried-up state,” said John G. Weikel, a hydrologist with the Ventura County Flood Control District. “It’s helping all over California, the snowpack especially.

“We still have to conserve, but it sure is nice to see green again,” Weikel said.

Burback said temperatures countywide will reach from the upper 50s to mid-60s today, with light winds and sunny skies. He said Saturday will become increasingly cloudy, with showers beginning as early as the afternoon.

Times correspondent Thia Bell contributed to this story.