Anonymous
(photo: Mike Eliason)
Edhat readers share their photos, videos, and reports from the intense storm that hit Santa Barbara on March 5, 2019. See them all below!
By Mike Eliason of Santa Barbara County Fire Department
Lightning strikes in the skies above Santa Barbara, CA, March 5, 2019, as seen in these views from Stearns Wharf.
Photo by @colinmccrindle
By an edhat reader
We set up a tripod on the roof and took a few hundred pics and selected the best to give to you. I am 12 years old and love photography.
By Sophie Cameron (daughter of HolaZola)
Lightning In Paradise, so photos shot from Goleta.
Photos by Yesenia Thomas
Captured from the top of Old San Marcos.
Video by Mark W.
By an edhat reader
Lightning in Isla Vista, Platform Holly hit. Monster cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning seen from Isla Vista.
Video by Sara G.
Video by Rey H.
Lightning strike near Mussel Shoals
Reported by edhat readers
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Is anyone else hearing that roaring thunder? We’re on the westside and its every few minutes, getting deeper and almost rattling our windows.
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Intense lightning off the water.
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Strong winds and hail off Painted Cave.
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Lights flickering, some houses dark, off State and Sola Streets.
You guys, there is a gnarly band looks to be gaining strength and getting large, looks to come through in maybe 30, 40 minutes. Hunker down.
Hearing it real good near the Mission. Lots of brownouts. I’m outside under my patio cover waiting for the dime sized hail to start falling. I love severe weather! It reminds me of Nothern California and Kansas.
There’s a big cell South West of the Channel Islands that should make things very exciting in about an hour.
You may want to get inside in a bit. That band coming is concentrated and many, many times larger than what you’re experiencing now. I’m up in Solvang and we are getting different bits and pieces. But she’s coming for you.
I stepped inside for a bit when there was less than a 2 sec delay between the flash and thunder. I’m hoping that the St. Anthony’s Tower or the Mission is a good lightning rod. A few minutes ago I must have heard half a dozen emergency vehicles going somewhere north of the Mission.
Go to the Doppler radar composite image at Vandenberg. We’ve got some strong stuff coming our way. Be careful. https://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?rid=vbx&product=NCR&overlay=11101111&loop=no
Where is KEYT ?
KEYT reports some fires: https://www.keyt.com/news/strong-storm-begins-assault-on-south-coast/1051406348
No everything went out here for awhile my cat is too scared to come back in and took off from me. I think they were looking for palm tree fires from lightening strikes.
I forgot the exact time, but in the late 4 p.m. hour? It was as dark as 5 p.m., some showers, then the sun came out and a stunning complete rainbow was visible (from San Roque)? That was so beautiful. Others must have seen it, no?
That would be north of the SB Mission. They could have been going to San Roque or up Mission Canyon. The thunder is less than 2 sec after the lightning. I’m back outside again. That cell in the Channel coming our way will be a lifetime memory.
If you need to take cover inside your home because of winds or tornado, go in your closet and put pillow over your head. Stay away from glass/windows, flying debris of any kind. Other option is get in bathtub and put mattress over you.
That big blob in the channel could be a big problem. Make sure you’re safe.
Flood Advisory
National Weather Service OXNARD CA
830 PM PST TUE MAR 5 2019
CAC079-083-060730-
/O.NEW.KLOX.FA.Y.0055.190306T0430Z-190306T0730Z/
/00000.N.ER.000000T0000Z.000000T0000Z.000000T0000Z.OO/
Santa Barbara CA-San Luis Obispo CA-
830 PM PST TUE MAR 5 2019
The National Weather Service in OXNARD has issued a
* Flood Advisory for…
Santa Barbara County in southwestern California…
Southern San Luis Obispo County in southwestern California…
* Until 1130 PM PST.
* At 822 PM PST, National Weather Service Doppler radar and
automated rain gauges indicated moderate to heavy rain with
embedded thunderstorms moving over Santa Barbara County this
evening. Rainfall rates between 0.33 to 0.50 inch per hour have
been observed. Roadway flooding and flooding of small creeks and
streams is likely. Minor mud and debris are possible near the
Thomas, Whittier and Sherpa burn areas.
* Some locations that will experience flooding include…
Santa Maria… Santa Barbara…Lompoc…Montecito…Santa Ynez…
Carpinteria…Solvang…Cuyama…Goleta…Guadalupe…Buellton…
and the Thomas…Whittier and Sherpa burn areas.
I just saw many strikes in the direction of the Mesa. It must be very exciting over there
This is so informative and amazing (and cool): Real Time Lightning Map (Thanks, poster!) Interesting for SB to be the focal point of CA coastal weather. N. CA sure needs a break. _____________________________
Strokes of the last 60 minutes are shown. The real-time data comes directly from the computing servers of Blitzortung.org, which are fed by hundreds of stations on several continents. The delay is calculated from the time stamps of each strokes compared to the current time.
Legend:
New lightning strikes have a red circle which gets smaller and disappears when it gets older than 60 seconds.
The color of filled circles represent the age of strikes up to 60 minutes. New strikes are yellow. The older they get, the darker the color. Dark brown is equal to almost 60 minutes. Those strikes will vanish soon.
On higher zoom levels the thunder front of current strikes is shown as white transparent growing circle (speed of sound). It gets more transparent while travelling and disappears after a while.
IMPORTANT: This map is intended for entertainment purposes only! _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________https://www.lightningmaps.org/#m=oss;t=3;s=0;o=0;b=;ts=1;z=11;y=34.3959;x=-119.7473;d=2;dl=2;dc=0;
holy moly! I’ve lived here over 50 years, I know how rare thunderstorms are here! wow…
eh. stay put. watch it from inside. Please.
Time to go inside. Less than a second delay on some of those lightning strikes. We just had a strike on our block
I sugar coated my response: DON’T!!
Lightning and instantaneous thunder on TV Hill at 8:52 pm
Cat has taken a defensive position – under the bed
Our cats are remarkably unconcerned. There’s no predicting cat behavior, I guess.
I should’ve been watching out my bathroom window the whole time, lol. Can hardly imagine the Mesa show!
Nature is playing for keeps tonight. Flash Flood Warning
Flash Flood Warning
CAC083-111-060630-
/O.NEW.KLOX.FF.W.0012.190306T0507Z-190306T0630Z/
/00000.0.ER.000000T0000Z.000000T0000Z.000000T0000Z.OO/
BULLETIN – EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
Flash Flood Warning
National Weather Service OXNARD CA
907 PM PST TUE MAR 5 2019
The National Weather Service in OXNARD has issued a
* Flash Flood Warning for…
THE Thomas Burn Area IN Western Ventura County in southwestern
California… Southeastern Santa Barbara County in southwestern
California…
* Until 1030 PM PST.
* At 904 PM PST, Doppler radar indicated thunderstorms with very
heavy rain with rates up to near 0.20 inches in 7 minutes about to
move into the Thomas burn area. Flash flooding and debris flows
are expected to begin shortly.
* Some locations that will experience flooding include…
The Thomas Burn area including M
MONTECITO!! Evacuate now, or go to 2nd story NOW.
I second Two Scoops Motion. Get to a safe place while you still can if you are in a debris flow zone. There are still strong bands offshore coming our way.
Does the defensive position convey a clear warning against putting your hand under the bed, or is it just hiding in terror?
Cat is totally freaked out — catatonic.
Really heavy rain in the Upper East now. This seems like a debris flow scenario. I hope not.
My little doggy is keeping herself buried under her blanket. I haven’t checked on my cats. One of them is a permanent scaredy-cat so she probably hasn’t moved from under the bed where she spends a lot of her life.
Pretty strong radar returns over in the valley too, so this might help with Cachuma levels.
Reports I saw before today said midnight to 3 a.m. might be the most intense. We’ll see. Water vapor & IR? Am I missing some sites? I only know of what’s been mentioned on this thread today — oh. I’m not good at exploring tabs and levels. Nice to see you.
Flow rate at lower Montecito Ck is now up at 63cfs, and the East end of Cachuma is getting 660cfs with the lake now at 65.7% (hope that brings it up a percent or two by morning).
Rate is just now easing up here 101@154 so my sense is the burn areas will ease up in the next half hour or so. Even though the soil’s saturated, rates on the county sensors seem to be all below 1/3″/hour. If it doesn’t intensify strongly we might be ok. So far this band has gotten a bit stronger coming onshore, but is apparently fairly high because it rains all the way to the San Rafael & Sierra Madre ranges. SBA is reporting light rain right now, ceiling at 5k’. Just while typing this the rain here has eased to light. I’m smiling, and feeling sleepy now. Thanks for joining the late watch YinYang. 🙂
Mike has out done himself again with his awesome photos!
Too bad the News Suppress let him go because their Front Page photo pales in comparison .
It looks like everything held together last night. Thanks for all the night owl posters last night. The storm put another little surge into Lake Cachuma as seen here. https://rain.cosbpw.net/map/?sensor_class=94&show_thresholds=true&view=8bc6e88f-eeab-4281-9d92-3d723016e945
OK heads up. Longer period of moderately heavy rain coming ashore now. Though less intense than the brief earlier squalls, this one might dump enough rain to cause problems. Especially since so much rain has already come down tonight. This squall is intensifying as it encounters the South facing slopes so up in the burn scar it could start getting ugly. Anyone have other resources indicating how this is going to unfold in the next hour or so?
Radar looks like one more weaker band is headed our way. Have we dodged the bullet?