Weather Runs Way Hot and Very Cool

Thunderstorms moved up the coast through Orange County into the Los Angeles basin - gloom in Loma Linda and drizzle in Walnut- and lead to at least two serious freeway crashes, some damaged power lines, and a few dry lightning fires.

A circular spiral of subtropical moisture moved northwest up the coast
from the mountains of San Diego County during the morning, creating hit-and-miss rain or hail and widespread lightning all across the Southland. Although radar showed that most of the storms had moved towards San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara by midday, a few cells were popping up in the San Fernando Valley
at noon, the NWS said.

A house in Van Nuys and a palm tree in Valley Glen were hit by lightning during the noon hour, but no serious damage was reported at either strike by Los Angeles city firefighters.

Earlier in the day, heavy rain on the San Diego (405) Freeway left water on the pavement, and six people were in a car that hydroplaned and struck a construction sign in Fountain Valley, a California Highway Patrol dispatcher said.

The crash on the northbound 405 Freeway, approaching Euclid Avenue, was reported to the CHP at 8:02 a.m. and involved a silver Chevrolet Cavalier, she said. No injuries were reported.

"It did cause some scattered outages, but they were momentary,'' said
Southern California Edison spokesman Charlie Coleman. "There are no major outages with the weather."

The National Weather Service tracked the thunderstorm as it moved north off the coast, then came ashore in Newport Beach at about 7 a.m. By 8, it was raining in Long Beach, and lightning strikes sent thunder booming across the South Bay.

Pea-sized hail fell at 7:30 a.m. in La Palma, a small suburb 30 miles
southeast of downtown Los Angeles. Lightning and moderate rain was reported across northwestern Orange County and into Long Beach, as the storm moved towards West Los Angeles at about 10 miles per hour.

A severe thunderstorm warning was issued at 8:13 a.m. for the area
between downtown Los Angeles and Inglewood on the northwest, and Fullerton and San Onofre on the southeast.

By 8:49 a.m., a CHP officer on the Harbor (110) Freeway in Carson
reported moderate to heavy rain was falling. But by 9 a.m., the Weather Service allowed the severe weather warning for western Los Angeles County to expire.

A small remnant of the storm moved west into Santa Monica Bay and
brought thunder, lightning and rain to the Malibu coast, where winds up to 40 miles per hour were forecast by NWS radar. A lifeguard at Zuma Beach said weekend beachgoers were treated to a dark sky, light rain and no wind.

Thunderclaps also punctuated the air in the San Fernando Valley. At
11:20, the NWS said a developing thunder cell was threatening the Woodland Hills and Agoura Hills areas, but a reporter in Sherman Oaks said the lightning show there was a dry dud.

A second storm cell had moved north into eastern Orange County at
midmorning, and spread north into the San Gabriel Valley. A CHP officer said drivers were avoiding hail by stopping their cars in traffic lanes on the Newport (55) Freeway in Anaheim.

In that storm, one car spun out on wet pavement on the McFadden Street onramp to the northbound 55.

Story by Hans Laetz, City News Service