Rain-Swept Area Just About Fit to Be Dried : Weather: Forecasters call for scattered showers today, then sunny days the rest of the week. The county received another soak Sunday.

Hang in there, Ventura County--dry weather is on the way.

Scattered showers today could dump about one-half to 1 1/2 inches of rain before giving way to sunny skies and warmer temperatures for the balance of the week, according to WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts to The Times.

“A welcome dry period will occur along with pleasant weather for a change,” said Steve Burback, a WeatherData meteorologist. “You can go out and get some sun.”

Ventura, Oxnard and Camarillo were drenched Sunday by a 90-minute downpour that ended about 12:30 p.m., leaving about a third of an inch of rain in its wake, said Hassan Kasraie, manager of hydrology for the Ventura County Flood Control District.

About half an inch of rain fell in Moorpark and Simi Valley, according to flood control district figures.

Still, Kasraie said, “the intensity was not high enough to cause any kind of flooding,” aside from some street puddling.

However, late Sunday several residents along or near Ventura Avenue above the city of Ventura reported that storm drains were backing up and water was entering their homes, county Fire Department officials said. Also, the California Highway Patrol reported numerous small rock and mudslides late Sunday along California 33 above Ojai. Caltrans crews were clearing the road.

The National Weather Service on Sunday kept a flood watch in effect, one stage below a more dangerous flood warning.

Caltrans’ Ventura office reported no road closures or mudslide problems on Sunday. But an 11-mile stretch of a mountainous highway, California 150 between Ojai and the Santa Barbara County line, remained closed after a mudslide Friday night.

Since Jan. 1, almost seven inches of rain have fallen in some Ventura County cities, according to WeatherData and the flood control district.

But that does not begin to compare to recent rainfall in a pocket of the upper Ojai Valley--an area called the Nordhoff Ridge, lying at an altitude of 4,100 feet in the Los Padres National Forest. It has been deluged with 23.5 inches of rain since the beginning of the year, Kasraie said.

As the sun peeked through dark clouds Sunday afternoon, Ventura County residents suffering from a week of cabin fever sought the outdoors.

Joggers and bicyclists filled pedestrian paths beside Ventura beaches while couples strolled along the shore.

Ventura resident Lori Dixon and her three young children--Chris, Mike and Amy--walked along the beach at Surfers’ Point at Seaside Park, retrieving tennis balls washed into piles of driftwood that had collected along the shore during the recent storms.

“They’ve been cooped up since Christmas vacation,” Lori Dixon said of her children. “They are wound up and tired of staying indoors. Every day it has been rain, rain, rain. I’m sick of it.”

Even before Sunday’s rain had stopped, Rene and Mario Navarro, a sister and brother from Thousand Oaks, were surfing. But two-foot breakers and a muddy ocean being fed by runoff from the Ventura River left them disappointed.

“If we lived in Ventura, we probably would have gone home,” Rene Navarro said. “But since we drove a half-hour, we figured we might as well get in the water.”

After a string of storms that lashed Ventura County last week and over the weekend, the worst of the wet weather should wind down tonight, forecaster Burback said.

“There are no new storms in sight,” he said.

That should make Ventura County farmers happy. A respite from downpours would give fields time to dry out so that strawberries, lettuce and celery can be harvested.

“It’ll give farmers a chance to recover from whatever damage they suffered” from the rain, said Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau. “Farmers can start stripping damaged fruit and spraying fungicides.”

Burback said that about five subtropical storms were spawned in the South Pacific and slammed into the Southern California coast over the past week.

Sunday’s rain, however, was the product of a Gulf of Alaska storm system, the brunt of which hit Northern California but also generated showers in Ventura County, Burback said. The system was expected to stay around much of today before moving inland.

Today’s daytime temperatures will be in the 50s and 60s, Burback said. As the rain clears out, conditions will get cooler with the possibility of local frost Tuesday night, he said.

Because of moisture in the ground, Burback forecast a touch of fog in some areas--mainly near Santa Paula--Tuesday morning, but it shouldn’t seriously threaten crops.

Beginning Wednesday, temperatures will start warming up and skies will stay relatively clear through Friday, he said.

Times staff writer Fred Alvarez contributed to this story.

County Rainfall

Here are rainfall figures from 5 p.m. Saturday to 5 p.m. Sunday from the Ventura County Flood Control District. Oct. 1 is the beginning of the official rain year.

Rainfall Rainfall Normal rainfall Location since Saturday since Oct. 1 to date Camarillo .55 11.08 5.95 Casitas Dam .47 18.19 10.04 El Rio .47 11.68 6.38 Fillmore .71 N/A 8.32 Moorpark .63 12.17 6.34 Ojai 1.10 N/A 8.89 Upper Ojai .67 19.69 9.49 Oxnard .35 10.01 6.12 Piru .59 15.58 7.28 Santa Paula .51 14.08 7.60 Simi Valley .47 N/A 6.05 Thousand Oaks .39 12.83 6.48 Ventura Govt. Center .35 11.94 6.78