County Braces for 3 More Big Storms : Weather: Forecasters say up to two inches are expected today, followed by three to five Saturday and a third front on Tuesday.

More rain and more flooding is predicted for soggy Ventura County in the next few days.

Up to two more inches of rain were expected to pound the area by noon today, and a storm carrying another three to five inches of rain was predicted to hit by Saturday.

A third storm farther out to sea was forecast to move inland by Tuesday.

The upcoming storms threaten to increase flooding of the raging Ventura River, where the muddy current Wednesday matched its intensity during the devastating 1969 floods.

“We’re concerned that the ground is so saturated that more rain will just bring more flooding,” said Dolores Taylor, Ventura County hydrologist and engineer.

The Upper Ojai Valley received more than four inches of rain Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, according to county Flood Control Department figures. Casitas Dam, north of Ventura, received nearly 3 1/2 inches. During the same period, Fillmore and Santa Paula received more than three inches and Simi Valley measured more than two inches.

Wednesday’s storm brought rainfall totals for this time of year to more than 25% above normal for most of the county.

Residents along the Ventura River and its tributaries, where some homes were flooded with mud and water early Wednesday, were warned to be prepared to head to higher ground.

However, the Ventura River, which rose to peak flows at 10 a.m. Wednesday, had subsided by afternoon. It was not expected to rise to the flood level after the storms expected today because of the lesser amount of rainfall, Taylor said.

County flood control officials were monitoring flooding from Calleguas Creek in the Camarillo area and the Santa Clara River in the Fillmore and Piru areas.

“Calleguas is already out of its banks on one branch and another branch might go over near the old Camarillo mansion,” Taylor said.

An intense series of storms has already dumped more than 12 inches of rain on parts of the county since last Wednesday.

But Terry Schaeffer, National Weather Service meteorologist in Santa Paula, said Wednesday that the county can expect a 36-hour break before the next major storm hits on Saturday.

“That will let the watershed drain out a little before the next one hits,” Schaeffer said. “But the next one is a real wet air mass.”

He said the storm, which will taper off to intermittent showers by midday Sunday, will be followed by another dry period of about 48 hours.

“The good news is that the breaks between systems are becoming progressively longer,” he said. Beyond the weekend storm, it is difficult to forecast precisely, he said, but another major storm will probably move into the area on Tuesday.

The storms, which come directly from Asia, are picking up added moisture as they make their way across the Pacific. High-pressure ridges that deflected storms during the previous drought years are gone now, said Schaeffer and meteorologist Mark Bogner, at WeatherData Inc., which forecasts for The Times.

“This is about as wet a pattern as we can get, due in part to the El Nino effect,” he said. El Nino is a warm ocean current that helps spawn heavy rainfall and occurs every six or seven years.

“This is the kind of pattern that breaks droughts,” Bogner said.

The forecasts for more rain had 50 maintenance workers with Ventura County Public Works patrolling the county Wednesday in search of potential trouble spots, Taylor said.

“Not unless we get a disaster declaration from Gov. (Pete) Wilson can we get help from the Army Corps of Engineers and those guys,” she said.