Southern California flooding and waterspout

[Jim Means]

Finally a big monsoon today over here in Southern California. The combination of an upper level disturbance offshore from San Diego and a deep moisture field (PW ~ 2") from the remnants of Hurricane Dean gave San Diego County its best monsoon day in quite a while. Lifting caused by the upper level disturbance initiated storms before sunrise, and the NWS in San Diego had to issue an unusual Flash Flood Warning for the area around Escondido, about 25 miles north of San Diego. A strong (but not severe) storm produced flash flooding and some areas got more than 2 inches of rain in about an hour and a half. Another storm occurring at the same time produced a waterspout offshore from San Clemente. Daytime heating later generated another flash flood producing storm in the area of Anza Borrego Desert State Park, where people had to be rescued from their cars in what are normally dry washes. This storm generated 3 inches of rain in some places and the NWS reported the top at 60,000 feet.

 

[Khristian Snyder]

I could not have been at a better place at a better time then Sunday morning! I live right at the coast in south San Clemente, and we got a very strong thunderstorm that morning. I was surfing when it hit, so I ran home to get my camera and tried to capture daytime lightning. I ended up selling a shot to the Orange County Register and it was on the front page the next day!

I did not even notice the reported waterspout when I was shooting the storm...but upon reviewing some of my shots...I believe I did captured it...nothing too impressive.

Here are the lightning shots: http://www.khristian.com/ScStorm/index.htm

Newspaper scan: http://www.moondogg.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/oc-register-front-page.jpg

Radar grab:

Lightning shot:

 

[Mike Smith]

Great shots!

Looks more like a wet microburst than a waterspout.

 

[Jason Boggs]

Wow Khristian! That is one of the better lightning shots I have seen in a long time. Definitely one to blow up and hang on the wall!

 

[cdcollura]

Cool storm over the Pacific.

I do not beleive there is a spout in there. It looks like rain curtains. Those fooled my many times myself. Here is why I think so...

The storm is clearly elevated, so little chance for waterspout. The Pacific Ocean sea surface is always cold off CA, no more that 55-65 degrees F year-round. The marine layer of cool air is often a few thousand feet thich under a warmer layer aloft (inversion) because of this.

The storm here is obviously originating from moisture and instability aloft (elevated) and well above the stable layer in the low levels and in-which the storm has no "access" to. A waterspout would be extremely unlikely in such a setup. However, lightning - That would be very interesting - Good picture!

 

[Khristian Snyder]

I did not mean that the particular photo that I posted had the waterspout. Another image with lightning had a funnel looking lowering and a little tube thing with a hollow look to it extending towards the water.

 

[Willie Dines]

Hey Kristian

First I gotta say that those are awesome pics man, nice clean cut images

I hope you don't mind my posting these, but for the benifit of everyone, I thought that it would be worth while posting them, as I have a feeling that these might be the images that you're talking about, but if not, then please correct feel free to correct me

The 1st 2 pics, look a bit ominous, and may possibly have rotation in the rain core, but I'm not too sure

The 3rd pic, does look very much like there is a small funnel there, but isn't a continuous funnel, but again, I'm not 100% sure on this

What are your thoughts people?

Willie

 

[cstrunk]

That first lightning picture is absolutely stunning. Nice job!

 

[Khristian Snyder]

That last shot is the one where, if there really was a waterspout...that would be it. I am doubtfull but to me it appears that there is a small funnel to the left of the bolt.

Again, I am doubtfull but there were reports of a waterspout coming from the storm at the time this was taken.

 

[Willie Dines]

Looking at the 3rd pic again, I've realised that the funnel doesn't appear to be discontinuous as I first thought, but I don't think that it may have touched down , without video footage, it's hard to tell for sure, but it looks very much like a funnel to me

Either way, they're awesome pics, nice catch Kristian

Willie