Warmer Days Offer Spring Wake-Up Call

For the optimists, it signals a fresh start. For cynics, it means months of rolling blackouts.

Any way you slice it, today’s vernal equinox--which arrives at 5:31 this morning--marks the start of spring. And as winter wrapped up Monday, Ventura County got a full preview of what the new season has to offer.

Indoors, enough people flipped on their air conditioners for the first time this year, helping to trigger waves of hourlong blackouts, which hit homes and businesses from Oxnard to Moorpark.

Outside, birds sang, trees blossomed and a soft and gentle ocean breeze rolled in. Sunny skies yielded highs of 74 degrees in Ventura and 88 in Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks. The National Weather Service said the forecast throughout the week is for equally sunny but slightly cooler days.

“I think spring is the best season,” said Kirsten Oh, 33, who sat in the sand at San Buenaventura State Beach enjoying spring break with some fellow graduate students from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena.

“We’ve had so much rain this winter, this spring is going to be a relief. There’s a few weeks when you see buds coming out on trees, wildflowers coming out, good signs of life’s continuum.”

At the water’s edge, Ben Carder, 27, a baker at Anacapa Bread Co., played a vigorous game of barefoot soccer with three co-workers, kicking the ball between two goal posts fashioned from sticks.

“I was just thinking of it today,” Carder said, soaked with sweat and sea spray. “Everything’s coming to life, including people.”

At Ace Hardware-Steve’s Plumbing Supply, the promise of spring was as sweet as the sound of a busy cash register. “This weekend, we sold tons of gardening tools,” said co-owner Lynda Girtsman. “People have that urge to do new projects, remodels, spring cleaning.”

It’s not just the amateur gardeners flocking to the store, Girtsman said. Many shoppers over the past few days have been inspired to get to work on their homes’ interiors as well, she said.

“One lady was looking at putting in a tub with a television in it,” she said. “I’m serious. A shower with body sprays, a steam dome and a TV.”

Meanwhile, scientists at the county’s Air Pollution Control District had their eye on another phenomenon that renews itself each spring: smog.

Warmer weather, fog and low clouds breed smog, as measured by ozone levels. The goal each year is to keep the county’s ozone levels within federal standards.

Cleaner cars and businesses, along with increased pressure by the county, has helped reduce the number of days each year that the county exceeds the so-called federal one-hour ozone standard.

In the early 1990s, the county exceeded that standard about a month out of the year, air monitoring manager Doug Tubbs said. Last year, it exceeded the standard only one day. This year, he said, “the goal is to have zero.”

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Times staff writer David Kelly contributed to this story.