LAST June 22, 9:00 PM Chris Vagasky, a Vaisala meteorologist who maps lightning around the world, said Wednesday night on Twitter that a total of 54,329 lightning bolts were detected in California on UTC on June 22 .
“The maximum in a single day since September 8, 2017, when 56,059 were detected,” Vagasky said. “This is the sixth highest daily total since 2015.”
Vagasky told SFGATE: “Surprisingly, this lightning in the last 24 hours is almost 9% of the total lightning detected in California in 2020 and 2021. Together.”
Total #lamp count for UTC on June 22nd. A total of 54,329 lightning strikes have been detected in California.
The maximum in a single day since September 8, 2017, when 56,059 were detected. This is the sixth highest daily total since 2015.
Unfortunately, 1 woman was killed. #CAwx pic.twitter.com/tZuxy7lT7e
– Chris Vagasky (@COweatherman) June 23, 2022
June 22, 11:50 am A gust of monsoon moisture that moved through southern California, the central valley and southern Sierra Nevada on Wednesday morning unleashed storms that launched tens of thousands of lightning bolts and caused a lightning strike. dead and wounded. Meteorologists said the weather event is unusual in June in California.
Chris Vagasky, a meteorologist at Vaisala, who maps lightning around the world, said on Twitter that the U.S. Lightning Detection Network detected 25,000 lightning strikes between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
Vagasky said the figure places the event at 2 percent of California’s lightning daily total.
Of the total attacks, Vagasky told SFGATE that 9,427 were cloud on the ground, while the others were pulses in the cloud and did not reach the ground.
“This is an abnormal event for June,” Vagasky said. “California’s busiest period for lightning is usually July through September once the monsoon has actually settled.”
A pretty phenomenal number of lightning bolts fall to the ground today on SoCal, and are underway (and can expand north and west later tonight / tonight). I’ve heard of dozens of reported wildfires, although some were small / self-extinguishing. #CAwx #CAfire pic.twitter.com/x3lyfaxyYp
– Daniel Swain (@Weather_West) June 22, 2022
The National Weather Service reported storms and lightning in southern California and southern central valley Tuesday night through Wednesday morning. More than an inch of rain fell over Los Angeles and Ventura County for 12 hours, and there were reports of hail the size of a pea. Firefighters responded to a fire that was likely started by lightning in Ventura County.
“There were a number of very small fires, but it’s hard to confirm if they started with lightning,” said Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist at the Los Angeles Meteorological Service’s office. “There was a small fire in Glendale. Everything has been very small. There has been nothing that has grown too big. Even Ventura’s has become small.”
A woman and her dogs were reportedly beaten and killed by lightning on Wednesday morning in Pico Rivera, a town about 15 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles, various media reported.
This is the first death by lightning in California in 2022 and the third in three years, the Lightning Safety Council said.
Pico Rivera City Council has asked residents to cancel all outdoor activities due to inclement weather.
About 160 miles northeast of Pico Rivera, a man was struck by lightning in Ridgecrest around 7:30 a.m. while pushing a baby in a stroller and walking a dog, the police department captain said. of Ridgecrest, Aaron Tucker.
“When officers arrived, they located a person who was suffering from lightning and the person was doing CPR,” Tucker said. “The victim regained consciousness. He was later taken to a hospital.”
Tucker said the dog and baby were not harmed.
Storms covered much of California as moisture west of the Channel Islands drifted inland.
“This is creating a flow to the South Pacific in Southern California, bringing enough moisture and instability to the region for storm development, when air begins to interact with California terrain,” Vagasky said. “As this system moves over California and Nevada over the next two days, the moisture supply will disappear and so will the possibility of storms.”
Monsoon moisture is expected to reach the San Francisco Bay Area on Wednesday afternoon, but the system is likely to lose a lot of strength and carry less moisture as it pushes from east to west from the central valley to the west. coast. Although storms in southern California caused some rain showers, storm activity is expected to provide less rain in the north.
“I would say, for the most part, we’re looking at scattered high-base rains with potentially an isolated storm or two,” said Drew Peterson, a forecaster at the Bay Area Weather Service Bureau. “The most likely areas for this are practically from Hollister north to near Benicia, including the whole of Santa Clara County, Contra Costa County, Alameda County, Solano County and Napa County, with the highest chance on the east side of these counties. ”
Data produced by the North American Lightning Detection Network is continuously monitored and validated against lightning fired by rockets, lightning in high towers, and other lightning references.
“The network detects more than 95% of the flashes on the ground cloud with an accuracy of 100 meters,” Vagasky told SFGATE for a previous story.