APTOS — A strong weather system along the Central Coast sent rain, rolling thunder and lightning strikes into Santa Cruz County overnight, but fire officials confirmed the following day that there was no threat to public safety.
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Units from Cal Fire CZU San Mateo-Santa Cruz spent Thursday checking terrain in Mid County and South County regions for any spot fires that might have been ignited by thunderbolts from a storm that passed through the area late Wednesday and early Thursday. Cal Fire said the region experienced 173 lightning strikes within a 24 hour period, five of which were confirmed within the unit’s coverage area of Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties.
According to a map of the strikes shared by Cal Fire, three strikes occurred in the Santa Cruz Mountains southeast of the Forest of Nisene Marks State Park, another struck in the hills above Corralitos and a fifth was documented near Pinto Lake.
A map of the lightning strikes that hit Santa Cruz County late Wednesday and early Thursday. (Contributed – Cal Fire)
Firefighters took off Thursday morning on ground-based patrols to investigate each location that was hit by the strikes and check for any signs of fire. A lightning reconnaissance flight was also scheduled to provide an aerial view of the areas.
“All lightning strikes were checked,” Cal Fire spokesperson Cecile Juliette told the Sentinel around 2:30 p.m. Thursday. “Negative any fires.”
Rick Canepa, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, explained that the storm was a rare setup in which a low pressure system in the upper levels of the atmosphere off the coast met a stream of moisture that was moving upward from tropical regions in the south, and it created significant instability.
“The merging of the two resulted in the showers and the thunderstorms that we saw across the area,” said Canepa.
Thankfully, he added, these were mostly wet thunderstorms which prevented the kind of dry strikes that can lead to wildfires. Last month marked five years since a powerful dry lightning storm ignited the CZU Lightning Complex fires that ripped through 86,509 acres of land in the Santa Cruz Mountains, destroyed more than 1,400 structures and killed one resident.
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Canepa said the Central Coast will enter a stable weather environment for the next few days and temperatures will continue to rise into the weekend. That will shift again late Saturday or early Sunday as another system makes its way to the region and is expected to bring more wet weather early next week.