Storm Brings Heavy Rain, Lightning, Power Outages

A rare thunderstorm brought bright flashes of lightning, hail and heavy rain across Southern California on Friday night, blacking out more than 6,000 homes and businesses and sending cars skidding.

Within 15 minutes after the downpour began, more than a dozen minor accidents were reported to the California Highway Patrol, followed by scores more on local streets across the region. No serious injuries were reported.

The storm was “just spinning around, not moving very much,” said Curt Kaplan, a public service meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. Fueled by moist surface air striking the mountains and then bouncing upward into the cold cloud cover, it pounded communities from Santa Barbara to Orange County.

In some communities, an inch of rain was expected to fall in less than an hour, while others were likely to be spared any precipitation, he added.

Kaplan said hail was reported in Pasadena, among the harder-hit areas during the early part of the storm. Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard called the rain “the most severe single shower” he had seen all winter. “It was short-lived, thankfully,” Bogaard said, adding that it passed in about 30 minutes.

Almost 6,300 Southern California Edison customers in Orange County were left without power, a company spokesman said. The outage affected parts of Huntington Beach, Corona del Mar, Newport Beach, Fullerton, Santa Ana and Irvine.

Not even seagoing vessels were safe. A boat docked at Newport Dunes caught fire after being struck by lightning, officials said. Newport Beach firefighters extinguished that blaze before serious damage was done, a dispatcher said.

“It’s a very busy night,” said forecaster Mark Moede of the National Weather Service. With the ground already saturated from recent rains, conditions are ripe for mudslides in canyon areas, he said.

Showers are expected to taper off this morning with rain becoming more likely again Sunday.

Just after 9 p.m. Friday, a truck overturned on the northbound Antelope Valley Freeway near Pearblossom Highway, leading to a four-vehicle pileup, said CHP Officer Richard Perez. The crash blocked all lanes of the freeway.