Wettest Storm Since March Due Tonight : Weather: The front is expected to linger through Sunday. Another may follow in time for New Year’s Day.

The wettest storm front since March is expected to sweep over Ventura County tonight, whipping the ocean into high swells, sending temperatures plunging and bringing at least an inch of rain to parched coastal areas.

Twice as much rain could fall over the inland valleys and mountain areas, with the higher elevations receiving at least a foot of snow, the National Weather Service said.

The storm front, expected to linger over the county through Sunday, could be followed by a second wave of wintry weather in time for New Year’s Day, said Terry Schaeffer, National Weather Service meteorologist in Santa Paula.

“It may rain on the Rose Parade,” Schaeffer said. “It’s too bad we didn’t get this system two days ago in time to get everyone in the mood for Christmas.”

But surfers who flocked to Ventura County beaches on Thursday were not complaining. Six-foot-high waves already were being spawned by the huge storm off the California coast.

“It had to be one of the best sessions I’ve ever had for like the whole winter,” said Neil Paredes, 22, a La Conchita resident and student at Santa Barbara City College.

Paredes, who joined 50 others bobbing in the water at Surfer’s Point south of the Ventura County Fairgrounds on Thursday, planned to ride out the storm at the Rincon today.

“It’s always better there,” Paredes said. “It’ll be great.”

Lifeguards warned, however, that surfers should beware of a strong current pulling them southward down the coast, since there are obstacles such as piers and rocks along the way.

“We’ll be monitoring closely because once (the waves) get bigger, the potential for problems comes into play,” said Kirk Sturm, a lifeguard at San Buenaventura State Beach. But 19-year-old surfer Keith McKnett of Ventura said the most dangerous thing about high surf is that it draws lots more people into the water.

“It gets pretty packed,” he said. “You’re five people to a wave sometimes.”

Rain is expected to begin falling tonight in Ventura County, Schaeffer said, continuing through Saturday and becoming spottier through Sunday and Sunday night. Temperatures should reach their coldest on Sunday, hovering in the 50s during the day and plunging into the upper 20s during the night.

The overnight lows Sunday should produce a heavy white frost on rooftops and require area farmers to switch on wind machines and fire up orchard heaters. But the frost should be well within the range that growers can manage, Schaeffer said.

With Northern California reservoirs still dangerously low and statewide rainfall only at 47% of normal, Schaeffer said, it is far too early to declare an end to the drought.

“When we have built up the snowpack in the Sierra and filled up the reservoirs, then maybe we can call it the end,” he said.

But Schaeffer and other meteorologists with the National Weather Service say there is a chance that January and the rest of the winter will be at least as wet as average because of a shift in weather patterns caused by the El Nino current and the eruption of the Mt. Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines.

The storm, to have wind gusts of up to 30 m.p.h., should also clear out the heavy haze that has settled over Ventura County during the last few days, Schaeffer said.

The haze is a combination of light refraction from the moisture in the air and smog that has traveled from Los Angeles through the San Fernando Valley and into Ventura County, said Douglas Tubbs, who monitors air quality for the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District.

Some of the haze could also be the result of heavy use of fireplaces in the area over the Christmas holiday, he said.

STORM FRONT: The wettest storm front since March is expected to sweep over Ventura County tonight, bringing at least an inch of rain to parched coastal areas. B1