Soggy end to the year with two weak storms

What’s turned out to be a light shot of rain from two passing systems, leaves the Santa Barbara South Coast region soggy to the 2016.

Most of the energy from the overnight storm went south from Ventura to Orange County with heavy bands of rain and lightning. The storm from for the most part dodged Goleta and Santa Barbara.

A stronger flow passed through this afternoon.

Mission Creek is handling the recent rains well. There are several areas where work is underway near the water front, to widen out the banks and improve the flow capacity, especially where flooding has taken place before after big storms.

Santa Barbara’s Leadbetter Beach had some people along the shoreline this morning when the sun came out, only wearing shorts and t-shirts, after the rain clouds moved on. No contamination from urban runoff has been reported. Testing takes place regularly.

Downtown shoppers from the east said they had colder temperatures and more snow where they lived.

“I grew up here, but we are going back to the east coast – Connecticut and New York. It’s not so nice out there. It’s a little cold what we are going back to,” said Andrew Fink. His dad who lives locally was not too worried about the rain and did not go out with an umbrella. The NewsChannel 3 First Alert weather center showed the strongest rain was at the Ventura County/L.A. County line with about a half an inch.