Countywide : Frost Expected to Move In Tonight

The first heavy frost of the season is expected to hit Ventura County tonight after a cold, unstable weather system swept through the county on Thursday, triggering reports of waterspouts off the coast, forecasters said.

Rainfall from the storm should amount to less than half an inch, but forecasters say another storm expected by Sunday should pack considerably more force.

Terry Schaeffer, a National Weather Service meteorologist who specializes in agricultural forecasts, predicted that temperatures should fall to as low as 25 in the coldest inland areas tonight. Temperatures might stay below freezing for as long as eight hours in the coldest pockets, but Schaeffer said area farmers should not see too much damage to their crops.

“County farmers will spend tens of thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars to run wind machines, sprinklers and helicopters tonight,” Schaeffer said, but he called the frost “eminently protectable.”

Schaeffer said cold temperatures will return Saturday night but that the threat of frost damage was slight compared with the devastating cold snap two years ago that caused $128 million in damage to the county’s crops.

The storm system, which struck most heavily Thursday in the San Joaquin Valley and the Sierra Nevada, was vigorous enough to spawn isolated funnel clouds and waterspouts.

The National Weather Service issued a warning of possible waterspouts between Ventura County and Newport Beach in Orange County until 7 p.m.

At Ventura Harbor, the harbor patrol received one report from a sailor who spotted a waterspout beyond Santa Cruz Island.

Meteorologist Steve Burback of Weather Data Inc. predicted high temperatures today will range from the mid-50s to low-60s in Ventura County, with lows tonight plunging to the high 20s.

He predicted that the storm expected to arrive by late Sunday or Monday should pack more punch.