Unusual Weather Event

This is about something that happened just a couple of days ago in my area of Southern California.





Photo ©2010 Helen Dawson

It's really interesting how our weather can change so quickly. Recently, we had weather in excess of 110 degrees for three days in a row. Our humidity was at only 5%, when suddenly, I could hear lightning flashes causing static on my radio, the static from the lightning could be heard for about twenty minutes, when all of a sudden the wind began blowing stronger and stronger still.



I went outside to be sure there was no damage from the strong winds. It was then that I saw the most impressive clouds: Huge, white billowing clouds, gigantic in size, and rising very high in the heavens. Yet, they were only in some places, and not covering the entire area.



Then, we suddenly got a temperature drop of five degrees within about three minutes. Earlier I saw there were huge rising clouds in the far distant eastward skies, which is normally in the desert areas, where it gets a lot hotter that we have.



Within a few minutes, people were losing power, and within a few more minutes, there were news reports on the radio that the area south of us about 15 miles, had a fire that was caused by the lightning, and there were also flash flood warnings for that area as well.



In the next few minutes, the temperature had fallen about ten degrees, and the humidity rose from 55 to 22%, within minutes.



Just about the same time, the area about 5 miles north, they had a power pole that was hit by lightning, causing the power lines to fall across the street, and land atop a public transit bus containing passengers. They also were under flash flood warnings.



Fortunately no one on the bus was injured, but they did have to stay onboard, until someone from the power company could come shut off power to the area, to allow the passengers to escape the damaged bus, and they power to be re-routed, making it possible to replace the broken pole.



Meanwhile, we were right between both affected areas, and we got not one drop or rain, nor any very nearby lightning. Micro-cell weather certainly can be strange, can't it?