A rare September lightning storm dumped rain across Southern California on Tuesday, capping an unexpectedly cool summer that confounded experts and significantly reduced the risk of brush fires.
Fire officials had been warning of a potential highly destructive brush fire season because of vegetation growth fueled by last winter's near-record rainstorms. But the summer has turned out to be far from a scorcher: June was 2.9 degrees below normal, July 1.2 degrees below, August 2.1 below and September 5.5 degrees below so far, said Bill Patzert, a climatologist with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
"The other ingredient is Santa Ana winds, but basically this summer has been cool and we haven't had a decent Santa Ana all summer," he said.
State and local fire officials said Southern California has had significantly fewer brush fires so far this year than in the last several years because of cooler weather and lighter winds.
So far this year, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection has fought 4,827 fires in its coverage area. That's down from last year's 6,100 fires to date and a five-year average of 5,700 to date.
As of this week, 52,803 acres of chaparral, grassland and woodland have burned, compared with 123,000 at this time last year and a five-year average of 101,509 acres.
But officials stressed that even with this week's rain, the brush is still dry enough for wildfires if hot Santa Ana winds kick up in October.
"We'll take all the moisture we can get right now," said Michael Jarvis, a spokesman for the Forestry Department in Sacramento. "We're just waiting to see what happens between now and the first week in November."
The thunder, lightning and shower bursts that occurred overnight were an "anomaly" rather than a preview of things to come, Patzert and other forecasters said.
"I'm still thinking we're going to have a dry winter, even though I was humiliated this morning with this rain," he said.
The storm snarled the morning commute, and officials reported several lightning strikes. The Artesia Freeway was temporarily shut when lightning hit a power pole.
Coast Guard searchers were looking for four people who reportedly abandoned their boat Monday night after lightning struck it between Dana Point and Catalina Island. So far, they have found no sign of either the vessel or the people.
