A monsoonal storm briefly dropped heavy rain, lightning and thunder, knocking out power for several hundred homes and businesses throughout Southern California into Friday morning, Sept. 10, authorities said.
More than 1,000 Southern California Edison customers were without power because of lightning or storm conditions in Orange, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, according to SCE’s outage map.
The biggest pockets of people without power were in Redlands (833 customers) and Orange (622), according to SCE. Restoration times varied, but crews were working to get the outages resolved, said David Song, SCE spokesman.
“The most important thing right now is for people who are impacted to go to the outage maps and sign up for outage alerts,” Song said. “You’ll get a good sense of when power might be restored which will help you plan for the day or evening.”
Other affected areas included Tustin, Anaheim, Santa Ana, Brea, Long Beach, Montebello, Rowland Heights, West Covina, Rialto and areas in the Angeles National Forest, according to SCE.
Most areas in Southern California saw about one-tenth of an inch of rain over a short period of time, meteorologists with the National Weather Service said.
Foothill areas, like above Monrovia and Arcadia toward the Bobcat fire burn scar, saw one-third of an inch of rain, leading to a three-hour flash flood warning that ended about 3 a.m. Friday, Meteorologist Mike Wofford said.
The lightning put on a show, but it wasn’t always entertaining.
Lightning struck a house on Birchmont in Aliso Viejo and set it afire. The homeowner declined an interview.
The monsoonal moisture is typical in Southern California this time of year, Wofford said. The moisture comes north from Mexico and circles above Southern California in a high pressure center and can lead to thunderstorms that are mostly seen in the mountains and desert.
“But sometimes that can go over to the valleys and the coast,” Meteorologist Adam Roser said. “It doesn’t occur very often, especially that far west, but we get some good rain out of that.”
The weather pattern was expected to hold in the mountains and desert Friday, forecasters said, before giving way to warm, dry weather over the weekend.
“Today’s going to be the last day of the monsoon show and … it’s going to be in normal places we’d expect it to occur,” Roser said. “The foothills might get a little in on it, but over the weekend into next week is looking very dry.”
Source: Orange County Register
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