Storm Brings a Cold Wind and Rain to County

The National Weather Service is forecasting one of the coldest days of the season today as a mild storm from the Gulf of Alaska was expected to drop up to a quarter-inch of rain on Ventura County.

A light rain fell Thursday night in the city of Ventura, but the brunt of the wet stuff was expected between midnight and 6 a.m. today.

“It’s going to be very cold and windy, but no record-breakers,” said Stuart Seto, a specialist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

Ojai was expected to be the coldest spot in the county today at an anticipated near-freezing 34 degrees, Seto said. Other forecasted lows included 37 degrees in Thousand Oaks and 38 in Oxnard.

If those lows occur, it would be a 10-degree drop from Thursday morning when the mercury dipped to the mid-40s in most areas of the county. Lows in the mid-40s are common for this time of December, Seto said.

Following the anticipated rain, it will be partly cloudy and breezy through this afternoon with decreasing cloudiness by tonight, Seto said. The highs will be in the low 60s.

A wind warning will be in effect today with gusts between 35 and 50 mph forecast in mountain passes and canyons. Depending on the amount of rainfall, the snow level could fall to 3,500 feet, Seto said.

“If Ojai has a low of 34 degrees and there’s a 30 mph wind, that will make the temperature feel like it’s about 6 degrees on a person’s skin,” Seto said of the wind chill factor.

Today’s chilly forecast prompted some farmers in the county to start making twice-daily telephone calls Thursday to a recorded weather line to check for possible freezing temperatures.

“There might be some protection required [tonight], but it’s a little too early to tell,” said Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau.

Laird said lows would have to dip into the low 30s for several hours before growers would need to turn on wind machines to warm crops. Crops most susceptible to damage with such lows include citrus, avocados and strawberries.

At Brokaw Nursery in Ventura, sales manager Larry Rose said an employee would spend the night at the business Thursday to monitor temperature gauges through Friday morning. If the temperature fell to 35 degrees, Rose said the nursery would use wind machines.

Rose wasn’t anticipating problems at the company’s 200 acres of citrus and avocado ranches in Saticoy and Santa Paula, because weather reports he received Thursday indicated the rain would be accompanied by cold air.

“It’s the dry air that can be most damaging for us,” Rose said. A dry air mass depresses temperatures faster. “The forecast doesn’t sound threatening to our crops. It sounds like it’s going to be wet and cold.”

Rose and other farmers said they would welcome rain because some cities have received less than half the normal amount of rain since the start of the rain season on Oct. 1.

Precipitation may also be good news for the Ventura County Fire Department, which was forced to extend this area’s fire season indefinitely because of a lack of rain.

“We’re still going to wait and find out how much rain we get,” said Sandi Wells, a department spokeswoman. “If it’s a quarter- or a half-inch it probably means we could consider closing fire season.”

Fire season, which begins May 15, normally ends Nov. 15.