Clearing, Warming Trend Expected

A storm that brought showers to Ventura County on Monday was expected to move out of the area by this afternoon, making way for clear skies and warmer temperatures, forecasters said.

The cold front dropped only small amounts of rain by Monday evening, mostly in western Ventura County, according to Ed Wentworth, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

“It looks like it will be fairly dry after this storm passes through,” Wentworth said. “It doesn’t look like we’ve started up into a wet pattern yet.”

The storm front, which moved over Southern California from the Northern California coast, kept Monday’s temperatures in the mid to upper 60s.

Despite the predictions of moderate showers, the Weather Service issued a special statement warning of mudslides in areas denuded by recent fires. A mudslide just north of Malibu closed a portion of the Pacific Coast Highway for about an hour Monday afternoon, but was easily cleared by Caltrans crews, a spokeswoman for the California Highway Patrol said.

Scattered showers were expected to continue to fall this morning throughout the county and forecasters predicted as much as one-quarter to one-half inch of rain in some areas.

As clouds move out of the area, temperatures are expected to rise and winds are expected to increase.

“It looks like it will be mostly clear and warmer through the weekend,” said Curtis Brack, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which does forecasts for The Times.