David Pallmann's Blog: California

Crazy Weather Day in California - Including Tornadoes

Fri, 23 May 2008 03:25:56 GMT

Many people think of Southern Califonia as having day after day of sunny weather. And often enough, that's true: I remember one year in the 90s where we literally had 200 straight days of sunshine in a row (they say the two most boring places to be a weatherman are L.A. and Seattle).

But not today. Today was probably the craziest day in California weather history. In the greater L.A. area, all of the following was going on, in various parts, all at the same time:

rainstorms

strong winds

mudslides

hail

snow

thunderstoms

tornadoes

That's right, snow. In California. In late May.

It's the torndaes (plural) that got my attention, because they were about 7 miles from my house for awhile. They were powerful enough to overturn trucks and railroad boxcars. Photos below.

Did I say today was the craziest day in California weather history? The news just gave tomorrow's forecast: "more of same."

Southern California is Burning

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 02:54:56 GMT

Southern California is on fire. Orange County is so thick with smoke it's practically unbreathable. Brush fires and Santa Ana Winds (hot desert winds) are to blame. Sadly, many of these fires are started deliberately. The fire department and state have pulled out all the stops, including using really large aircraft (DC-10s) to drop mass amounts of fire retardant.

California Space Shot

Fri, 23 Sep 2005 16:35:19 GMT

Yesterday I saw something quite unusual in the sjy. I left work around 7:30 in the evening. The sun had already set and the sky was getting dark. As I was driving up the 241 freeway, I glanced to the left and noticed something large and unusual in the sky. There was a coursing point of light with a long, lingering rail of vapor behind it that twisted this way and that. It was huge, and even though the sky was dark the tail was illuminated. It was mostly white but orange near the end.

I watched this for a good 10 minutes or so, trying to also keep my eye on the freeway. The light at the end of the tail suddenly seemed to go out,m then a few seconds later it came back again, this time with a wide cone of illumnated vapor behind it. Eventually it went out again, and the vapor that filled the sky slowly dissipated. I've never seen anything like this before. As my mind considered various possibilities--enemy missile attack? Huge meteor strike? Alien invasion?--none of them pointed to a pleasant outcome. I doubted this was a local atmospheric phenomenon because what I saw seemed to be propelled.

I'd been listening to talk radio the whole time, and after one of the breaks they admitted they were getting hundreds of phone calls about this mysterious phenomenon. It turns out what I saw was a space shot from Vandeberg Air Force Base putting a military research satellite into space. Pretty cool, I hadn't realized space missions were conducted from California.