“Most in one day since September 8, 2017, when 56,059 were identified,” Vagasky said. “This is the 6th highest daily total since 2015.” Vagasky told SFGATE: “Strangely, this lightning from the last 24 hours is almost 9% of the total lightning detected in California in 2020 and 2021 together.” Total number of # lightning bolts for the UTC day on June 22. A total of 54,329 lightning strikes were detected across California. Most in one day since September 8, 2017, when 56,059 were identified. This is the 6th 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 a.m. A monsoon gust that swept through Southern California, Central Valley and southern Sierra Nevada on Wednesday morning caused tens of thousands of thunderstorms, causing deaths and injuries. Meteorologists said the weather is unusual for June in California. Chris Vagasky, a meteorologist at Vaisala, which maps lightning around the world, said on Twitter that the North American Lightning Detection Network had detected 25,000 hits between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. Vagasky said that number puts the event at the top 2% of daytime lightning sets in California. Of the total hits, Vagasky told SFGATE that 9,427 were ground-based clouds, while the others were pulses in the cloud that did not reach the ground. “This is an abnormal event for June,” Vagasky said. “California’s most active lightning season is usually July to September when the monsoon is really established.” An astonishing number of cloud-to-ground thunderbolts are hitting SoCal today, and they are in progress (and may extend north and west later today / tonight). I have already heard of several dozen reported fires, 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 the Southern Central Valley Tuesday night through Wednesday morning. More than an inch of rain fell over Los Angeles and Ventura County in 12 hours, and there were reports of pea-sized hail. Firefighters responded to a fire that probably started with lightning in Ventura County. “There have been a number of very small fires, but it is difficult to confirm whether they were caused by lightning,” said Ryan Kittell, a Los Angeles meteorologist. “There was a small fire in Glendale. Everything was very small. There was nothing that was very large. Even the one in Ventura was 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, according to several media reports. This marks the first lightning death in California in 2022 and the third in the last three years, the Lightning Safety Council said. The town of Pico Rivera has called on residents to cancel all outdoor activities due to bad weather. About 160 miles northeast of Pico Rivera, a man was struck by lightning at Ridgecrest at about 7:30 p.m. while pushing a baby in a stroller and walking a dog, said Ridgecrest Police Chief Aaron Tucker. “When police arrived, they located a man who was suffering from lightning and the person was providing WRIST,” Tucker said. “The victim regained consciousness. He was later taken to hospital.” Tucker said the dog and baby were unharmed. The storms covered a large area of California as humidity west of the Channel Islands swept inland. “This creates a southerly flow from the Pacific to southern California, bringing enough moisture and instability to the area to develop storms when the wind begins to interact with California soil,” Vagasky said. “As this system moves over California and Nevada over the next day or two, the humidity supply will disappear and so will the chance of thunderstorms.” The monsoon humidity is expected to reach the San Francisco Bay Area on Wednesday afternoon, but the system is likely to lose much of its power and carry less moisture as it pushes east to west from the Central Valley to the coast. While storms in Southern California caused some rainfall, storm activity is expected to cause less rain in the north. “I would say for the most part, we are looking at high-level scattered rains with potentially isolated storms or two,” said Drew Peterson, a Bay Area meteorologist. “The most likely areas for this are more or less from Holister to the north to Benicia, including all of Santa Clara County, Contra Costa County, Alamenta County, Solano County and Napa County, with the highest probability in the east side of these counties “. The data generated by the North American Lightning Detection Network is constantly monitored and validated against lightning caused by rockets, lightning strikes in high towers and other lightning reports. “The network detects more than 95% of cloud-to-ground flashes with an accuracy of 100 meters,” Vagasky told SFGATE about a previous story.
