Unusual Storm Causes Crashes, Damages Crop

An unseasonably cold storm crept down from the Gulf of Alaska and hit Ventura County early Monday, dropping nearly 1 1/2 inches of rain on parts of Ventura, causing minor traffic accidents countywide and deepening the heartache of local strawberry growers.

Although the sun peeked through gray clouds late Monday, meteorologists predicted continued showers through today, diminishing by late afternoon as the storm moves south.

The Ventura County Fire Department responded to six weather-related accidents, said spokeswoman Vicki Sosa. Sosa reported four accidents along California 118 in the Simi Valley area and two along the Ventura Freeway in Thousand Oaks. There were no serious injuries.

The California Highway Patrol reported 24 minor accidents between 7 a.m. and 1 p.m. Monday throughout the county.

The surprisingly cool storm swirled above the Central Valley for the last few days before lumbering south to Ventura County, said Curtis Brack, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times.

“This is unusually cool,” Brack said of Monday’s storm. “I’ve seen temperatures 10 to 20 degrees lower than normal in parts of California. . . . It’s really just kind of late in the season to get a fairly big storm like this.”

While the brunt of the storm started moving south by late Monday, “it’s still possible for showers to continue through Tuesday morning,” said Dennis Tussey, a technician for the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

He added that county residents can expect partly cloudy skies Wednesday afternoon through Friday, with highs in the 60s until Thursday. It should warm to the low-70s by Friday. Lows should be in the 40s and 50s.

For strawberry growers, Monday’s downpour worsened an already rain-soaked season. “If you grow strawberries, it’s terrible,” said Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau. “Those people who were still picking [strawberries] for fresh market probably got hit the worst. The rain that I saw was more than hard enough to damage fruit.”

The storm’s arrival was precipitated by an upper-level, low-pressure system that replaced a high-pressure system normally in place by late spring above the eastern Pacific Ocean, Brack said.

“That high-pressure system hasn’t developed yet, and that allowed the storm to come all the way southward,” he said. “That high-pressure area would normally be shunting these storms north and east by this time of year.”

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County Rainfall Here are rainfall figures from the Ventura County Flood Control Department for the 24-hour period ending at 6 p.m. Monday. Oct. 1 is the beginning of the official rain year.

Rainfall Rainfall Normal rainfall Location last 24 hours since Oct. 1 to date Camarillo 0.24 24.02 12.81 Casitas Dam 1.07 48.76 22.73 El Rio 0.71 29.55 14.62 Fillmore 0.94 33.20 18.16 Moorpark 0.43 25.99 14.29 Ojai 1.73 41.05 20.79 Upper Ojai 1.69 49.09 22.90 Oxnard 0.63 27.71 14.13 Piru 0.63 31.48 16.72 Santa Paula 0.83 33.96 16.97 Simi Valley 0.79 27.84 13.98 Thousand Oaks 0.83 28.59 14.96 Ventura Govt. Center 1.22 32.00 15.57