Rare Summer Storm Pounds the High Desert

After gale-force winds toppled trees, power poles and a highway billboard in Lancaster, Los Angeles County firefighters spent Wednesday formulating a plan to battle another round of storms expected to continue until tonight.

The violent weather was part of a series of storms that skipped around Southern California on Wednesday, pelting Huntington Beach, Santa Barbara and other areas with unusual summertime rainfall, said National Weather Service forecaster Bruce Rockwell.

“The rain was really hit-and-miss. They were separate storms. They all broke off as cells from the same storm system, east and southeast of Los Angeles,” he said.

Gusts of up to 65 mph, short of the hurricane-force level of 74 mph, uprooted hundreds of trees, bent a billboard and snapped 27 utility poles in the High Desert, leaving 4,800 customers without power, authorities said. Temperatures hovered near 100 as tree limbs fell onto houses and parked cars, but there were no reports of major injuries.

“We have never experienced anything like this. All of a sudden there was wind, rain and hail, and then it’s gone,” said Dennis Davenport, Lancaster’s assistant city manager. “The real silver lining in this dark cloud over us is that we haven’t had any injuries and not a lot of structural damage.”

Still, county firefighters spent Wednesday planning how to deal with the high winds and heavy rains predicted through tonight. Eight teams of 15 firefighters were assigned to respond to weather-related incidents, such as downed power lines, lightning strikes and fallen tree limbs.

Lightning flashed and penny-size hail fell around Lake Los Angeles as the monsoonal system passed through the area Tuesday, said Stuart Seto of the National Weather Service.

The high winds and heavy rain abated somewhat Wednesday morning, giving firefighters and maintenance crews time to remove debris from streets and driveways before another storm moved through Wednesday afternoon, said Davenport.

“Whenever there is a weather event like this, we like to have units prepared in anticipation of our needs,” said Chris Casillas, a county Fire Department spokesman. “We want to be ready for whatever happens.”

Despite the freak weather driving crowds away, the annual U.S. Open of Surfing contest was held at Huntington Beach.

Several south Orange County cities, including Mission Viejo and Irvine, reported driving rain, but the weather service did not have amounts.

The 0.27 inch of rain reported in Long Beach was “highly unusual for this time of year,” Rockwell said. Downtown Los Angeles reported a trace of rain, as did Santa Barbara and Oxnard. Torrance recorded 0.13 inch, Redondo Beach 0.10 and Culver City 0.08, while nearby areas such as Pasadena and the San Fernando Valley remained dry.

Forecasters said warmer, drier air should begin moving across the region Friday, with conditions returning to normal by the weekend.

Weekend temperatures are expected to range from lows in the 60s to highs in the 70s at the beaches, 80s inland, low 90s in the valleys and high 90s in the deserts.

*

Times staff writers David Reyes and Wendy Thermos contributed to this report.