7 p.m.
Tip-of-the-hat to Alyssa Banks, a San Clemente lifeguard supervisor, and Marcy Puhnaty of Laguna Niguel and mkartworks.com , for sending us these images. And check out Kristian Snyder’s slideshow here.
Residual moisture from former Hurricane Dean spawned rare summer thunderstorms in south Orange County today, sparking lightning that forced people to flee from San Clemente City Beach and knocking out power to about 700 homes and businesses.
The thunderstorms (shown at left) also produced a brief 1,000-foot tall water spout off San Clemente, and brought a touch of rain. Unfortunately, drought-stricken OC didn’t get hit like Escondido, which received almost 2 inches of precipitation from a rollicking thunderstorm cell.
San Clemente received only 0.16 inches of precipitation, the highest total in the county. The rain won’t do anything to alleviate the region’s drought, says the National Weather Service. In fact, coastal winds gusting up to 25 mph dried things out and sent the sand flying in Huntington Beach and Newport Beach this afternoon.
San Diego Gas and Electric has restored power to all but 278 customers, says the Register’s Katherine Nguyen, who also is reporting this story. The remaining customers should regain electricity sometime this evening.
The thunderstorms were most intense between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m., when lightning struck the ground or Orange County’s coastal waters 44 times, the weather service says.
At the height of the nastiness, San Clemente lifeguard supervisor Kevin Cook said that, ”A couple of hundred people are being evacuated from all the beaches in San Clemente and the campgrounds. Those who can’t leave are being asked to head to the restrooms for safety.
“The storm looks like it’s headed directly at us. We just saw a bolt hit the beach.”
Among those fleeing the beach was Laura Gonzales, who told us, “The seven of us (in her family) drove all the way from Moreno Valley this morning for a family picnic … but as soon as we got there at 10:30 a.m. a police officer was yelling at everyone: ‘Leave now! Leave now!
“It was very scary. We left and went to a nearby Denny’s to eat and then came back to the beach. We’re hoping to make the best out of it since we drove all this way. But it doesn’t look like the sun is coming back out and the water doesn’t look too good to go into.”
A second thunderstorm developed over Rancho Santa Margarita.
“Just rained heavily in Rancho Santa Margarita. Starting up again with very large drops,” says reader Paul Spitsen.
Steve Vanderburg, a weather service forecaster, said, “There’s a lot of moisture in the atmosphere left over from what was Hurricane Dean, and the low pressure is turning it into thunderstorms.”
Thunderstorms are common in the Inland Empire during the summer. But they rarely flow west of the Santa Ana Mountains because the air is usually too stable here to support such systems. But conditions were different on Sunday. Leftover moisture from Dean flowed past the west coast of Mexico, where it mixed with low pressure. That moist, unstable air rolled in off the ocean, bringing Orange County thunderstorms whose tops rose up to 40,000 feet, or about 40 times the height of the Eiffel Tower.
The thunderstorms appeared to the south and west early this morning, catching the attention of Ronnie Johnson of Dana Point.
“I haven’t heard the crack of lightning in a long time,” said Ronnie Johnson of Dana Point. ”One of the bolts I saw looked like a big V.”
The Orange County Sheriff’s Department told our Kat Nguyen that the Dana Point Harbor Patrol went through a period of counting lightning bolts every 15-20 seconds …”but it was every 7 seconds in San Clemente.”
Gregg Tomchick, who could see the system from Huntington Beach, “The lightning was incredible! Big bolts were going all the way down to the water about every 2-4 minutes. Followed 10 seconds later by loud but distant thunder! A pretty cool August beach day!”
C’mon any one from the rest of the country wouldn’t even acknowledge this as a isty bisty little baby thunder storm.
I live here in Lake Forest, but I dont see any rain.. Im surprised to hear that it is raining in Rancho Santa Margarita!
I was looking out from my balcony and could see the storm coming. Lightning got closer and closer straight towards me. The house next door from me was hit by lightning, the transformer in flames. The fire department was there in minutes to put some water on it. It is now 1:12PM and power is restored at a minimum. Only small electronics work. The phone is out too. I feel so disconnected right now.
Lightning bolts on the beach = nature telling the tourists to GO HOME.
Nobody should move to San Clemente…. It’s hell here!! Stay in Moreno Valley/Irvine/or where ever it is you are comfortable……
We were packing up at the San Clemente state beach campground when the storm hit, I have been in a few midwest thunderstorms and I can say that this rivaled the ones I have experienced. It POURED for around an hour and the thunder and lightining was everywhere. We returned to Newport Beach around 11:30 and it was scattered clouds with the occasional sprinkle.
This is a rare event, but can happen..It’s happened in the past and will occur again. Moisture from the south and southeast (monsoonal) will seep up into Southern California during the late summer and provide usually the Mtns and Deserts with afternoon thunderstorms. If condition are just right, a few of these storms will move west or northwest and affect the inland valleys or even the coastal cities..especially south. I remember a huge thunderstorm that struck South Orange County on September 30th / October 1st, 1981 during the late night and dropped about an inch and a half of rain. The thunder lasted most of the night with vivid lightning all over. It was HUGE!!