Trace of Rain a Record in L.A.

It may not have been much, but the rain that swept across Southern California on Sunday and brought trace amounts of precipitation to Ventura County, set a record in Los Angeles.

The National Weather Service reported .02 inches of rainfall at the Civic Center in Los Angeles, breaking the city’s old record of .01 inches set in 1914.

Ventura County received far less. Most weather stations reported just a trace of rain, defined by the weather service as less than five-thousandths of an inch.

The rain started early Sunday as moist tropical air from the Gulf of California met an upper-level disturbance over the desert, according to the weather service. Thunderstorms sprang up and began moving north and west. Most of the lightning had ended by daylight, but the rain continued, said Vladimir Ryshko, a meteorologist with the weather service.

If the faint drizzle surprised Ventura County residents, it didn’t seem to change their Sunday plans.

Rick Ongstad, co-owner of the Thousand Oaks Auto Swap Meet, said his open-air lot in Newbury Park was packed with used-car shoppers who didn’t seem fazed by the rain. “People were glad,” he said. “It was like a tropical cool-down. People got a free carwash.”

At the beach in Ventura, the rain began about 11 a.m. and lasted until sometime after 2 p.m. But Lifeguard Tom Harris counted about 300 people on the beach in the midafternoon. “It’s still more than you’d expect for a rainy day,” he said.

The rain ended in most of the county by early afternoon, giving way to patchy sunshine. Today’s forecast calls for morning fog giving way to partly cloudy skies, with highs in the mid-70s.