Blue Skies Smile After Light Rain

An offshore storm darkened skies early Monday and dropped traces of rain across Ventura County, but weather forecasters said there is no more of the wet stuff anywhere in sight.

“Ventura County got just a sprinkle of very light showers,” said Bruce Rockwell, a National Weather Service meteorologist based in Oxnard.

“It was nothing appreciable,” he said. “Most of the stuff didn’t get much farther south than Santa Barbara.”

Forecasters in Ventura County reported just fractions of an inch of rain, with Matilija Dam, north of Ojai, receiving the most water anywhere in the county. That area reported 0.16 inches of rain since the last major storm over the weekend.

Rockwell said a clearing trend will make for a warm and breezy week, with high temperatures reaching into the 70s and overnight lows dipping into the 40s.

The mountainous areas of the county will be about 10 to 15 degrees colder than the inland and coastal areas, he said.

Weather analysts said that season-long rain totals already are lagging normal years and well below last season.

“After the [upcoming] weekend, any rain is kind of iffy,” Rockwell said. “But it’s early in the month. We will probably still have a storm coming through, but it won’t be anything like last year.”