No Rain, But Wind and Cold Sweep Into Area

The rain didn’t materialize Monday. But gusting winds did, ushering in some of the coldest temperatures Ventura County has felt this winter.

The winds reached 32 mph in Oxnard and Camarillo and whipped the ocean into white caps before dropping off in the evening, said Bob Cari, National Weather Service meteorologist in Oxnard.

Temperatures are expected to remain 5 to 10 degrees below normal through today. Last night was expected to see the coldest temperatures, with the mercury plunging to 31 degrees in Ojai and 32 in Santa Paula.

While that means frost is a possibility, the cold readings were expected to last for only two hours or so, making damage to crops unlikely, Cari said.

Temperatures are expected to grow warmer through the week and the county will probably remain out of the storm track, with Thursday and Friday bringing only variable cloudiness as wet weather passes to the north, he said.

The region’s relatively dry winter continued, with Sunday’s storm bringing far less rain than predicted to the county.

Rainfall totals for the 24-hour period ending at 8 a.m. Monday ranged from three-tenths of an inch at Piru to a mere half an inch at Camarillo, a far cry from the 1 1/4 to 1 3/4 inches forecast.

“It didn’t quite live up to expectations along the coast,” Cari said. “Even though it doesn’t look like it here, there was quite a storm to the east of us.”

Frazier Park, at an elevation of 4,610 feet just over the Kern County line, received 3 1/2 inches of snow, Cari said. Even more fell further to the east, bringing needed snow to ski resorts.

But most Ventura County mountain measuring stations fared relatively poorly, receiving less than two-tenths of an inch of precipitation, said Delores Taylor, senior county hydrologist.

“We’re sitting at less than 30% of normal precipitation at some stations,” she said.

Whether the lack of rain is bad depends on your point of view, Taylor noted.

“I imagine La Conchita breathed another sigh of relief,” she said, recalling the community threatened by mudslides. “Their fairy godmother is watching out for them.”