Rain Expected to Clear by This Afternoon

Children may have to wait to try out Christmas skateboards and bicycles until the afternoon, when showers are expected to give way to partly cloudy skies throughout Ventura County.

A Pacific storm threatened the county Sunday afternoon, with dark skies, winds gusting up to 35 mph and 5-foot surf. But the front failed to produce the heavy rain that meteorologists had forecast.

“Basically, the area of low pressure that was coming into the coast was falling apart as it approached the coastline,” said Steward Seto, a weather specialist for the National Weather Service in Oxnard. “Moisture was in the air, but none of it was coming down.”

The storm was originally forecast to bring up to three-quarters of an inch of rain to the county’s coastal areas by Christmas morning. But by Sunday afternoon, meteorologists had downgraded the estimate to only one-quarter to one-half inch from Sunday night through this morning, with up to an inch expected in the mountain areas.

A chance of snowfall of 1 to 3 inches was also forecast for elevations of 3,000 to 4,000 feet, through Christmas morning.

The forecast for the rest of Christmas Day, said Seto, called for a chance of showers through early afternoon, decreasing into the evening. Tuesday was expected to be partly cloudy with temperatures reaching the upper 60s.