Region Sizzles as El Nino Fizzles

After a wet autumn, Ventura County basked in a January among the hottest and driest in recorded county history.

But some forecasters still expect a stormy spring to push rainfall totals well above normal.

Most of the county received no measurable rain in January, officials said Friday, and Ventura received just 0.02 of an inch from a coastal drizzle the morning of New Year’s Day.

Ventura’s rainfall total was among the seven lowest for the month since officials began tracking precipitation in the city’s downtown 113 years ago, said Scott Holder, hydrologist for the county Watershed Protection District.

And there was no rainfall at all last month at the County Government Center in east Ventura, Santa Paula, Ojai or much of the county, he said.

“Our rainfall was 200% of normal at the end of December,” Holder said. “Now we’re looking at a range from 81% of normal in Fillmore to 123% in Ventura.”

Temperatures in January were also extraordinary, with Ventura recording an average high of 73 degrees, while Thousand Oaks averaged 76.

The month ended with the highest temperatures of all, setting records around the county. Oxnard, for example, baked at 94 on Friday, six degrees higher than any temperature ever recorded for the city in January.

Tom Johnston, a climatologist who has kept track of local weather since 1965, said January’s temperatures were the highest for the month since at least the 1960s.

“It’s been a phenomenal month,” he said. “We’ve had Januarys without rainfall before. But not this combination [of heat and dryness]. And I don’t hear anybody complaining, except the farmers. I just talked to a rancher yesterday who said we’ve got to have rain pretty soon or his grass is going to dry out.”

National Weather Service forecasters are sticking to earlier predictions that rainfall for the rest of the winter should be higher than normal for the region.

Indeed, February is usually the wettest month of the year and March one of the wettest, with between 3 inches and 4 inches falling each month along coastal Ventura County.

“It’s still what they’ve classified as a moderate El Nino year, and that will run through late spring,” said weather specialist Stuart Seto at the weather service’s Oxnard office.

“Our Climate Prediction Center has been saying, ‘Yes, we’ll still get above normal,’ ” he said. “But unless it’s a strong El Nino, there’s no guarantee we will get higher than normal rainfall.”

Normal rainfall for Ventura is about 16 inches a season, with about 22 inches in Ojai, which has the highest rainfall among local cities. So far, Ventura has received only about half of that total after strong storms in November and December.

Holder said he now doubts earlier predictions that this winter season will be wetter than usual.

“[Forecasters] keep trying to force that El Nino in here,” he said, “and I think it’s gone to Miami or somewhere. It’s not coming to Southern California.”

In another measure of the region’s summer-like conditions, Los Angeles experienced one of only four Januarys since the 1800s when there was no measurable rain in the city’s downtown. It was also the hottest January in the city’s history, including a temperature of 91 on Friday, the National Weather Service reported.

Holder said the extra moisture created by El Nino, a warming of waters in the Pacific Ocean near the equator, has continued to soak Northern California and the Northwest. The snowpack near Lake Tahoe remains above normal, and the Mendocino County coast has received up to 85 inches of rain, he said.

The year with a weather pattern most similar to this, 1983-84, offers no hint of rains to come, Holder said. That year the county received almost no rain from January on. Another season with a similar weather pattern, the winter of 1928, had just 4 inches of rain in February and March.

But meteorologist Terry Schaeffer, who specializes in agricultural weather forecasts, said he is still guardedly optimistic about a wet spring.

“People say El Nino is a big bust,” he said. “But our research group is still indicating above-average rain for the next three months. The last big El Nino, we did have a break in December and January before it broke loose and then rained for three months.”

But the rains won’t start for at least a week.

“We have a slight chance by the end of next week,” said Dave Gomberg, a weather service meteorologist. “For the next few days we’re going to remain dry. But Thursday or Friday could bring us rain.”

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Ventura County’s dry January

Some local jurisdictions received no measurable rain last month. Despite a wet fall, the dry January left precipitation below normal in most local cities.

*--* Location Usual rainfall Rainfall Percentage Rainfall to date* this season of usual last season Fillmore 9.35 7.59 81% 6.32 Oxnard 6.91 5.69 82% 5.04 Thousand Oaks 7.56 6.26 82% 4.61 Camarillo 6.69 5.86 87% 5.29 Ojai 10.02 8.90 89% 6.27 Matilija Dam 13.48 12.41 92% 8.66 Santa Paula 8.33 8.16 98% 6.77 Simi Valley 7.04 7.34 104% 4.67 Ventura 6.81 8.39 123% 5.36

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*Rainfall season begins Oct. 1.

Source: Ventura County Watershed Protection District