@FilterGuy @Ampster @Craig and others near the fires ravaging California right now. Hope y'all are well out of harms way.
For those outside of the area and unaware, an oppressive heat wave and rolling blackouts late last week led up to a freak massive fast moving middle-of-the-night electrical storm with huge erratic wind gusts and over 10,000 lightning strikes pounding Big Sur, Monterey, Santa Cruz, the Bay Area and beyond, sparked nearly 370 fires, and NOAA and the NWS declared four separate emergency advisories for the area.
I woke up to the wind at around 2:30AM and went outside to see what was going on (I know, not the smartest idea--I can't help it, I was raised in California we almost never have real storms and have no real storm sense..), the picture below (not taken by me) is representative of the near constant pounding of lightning that rolled in off the coast with impressive speed and force, with huge gusts of wind and strange intermittent fog. Its impossible to describe but it was by far the most extreme and strange weather I have been out in in California, and it came out of nowhere.
That was early morning the night of the 16th, the next day I was surprised that the inevitable wild fires caused by the lightning strikes at a time when the state was already so dry and hot did not seem to have manifested. Fast forward to this morning, and many of the nearly 370 fires burning around the state have exploded. Santa Cruz, the Santa Cruz Mountains and elsewhere look like something between what I imagine living on Mars would feel like and a post-apocalyptic hellscape. As of now the CZU Lightning Complex fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains has spread to over 100,000 Acres and I believe the LNU Lightning Complex Fire in Sonoma / Napa is at least that large, both are virtually 0% contained and growing rapidly and CALFIRE is stretched thin across the state.
Videos I can't figure out how to embed from Twitter:
Time Lapse, Santa Cruz Mountains
Mars like atmosphere
Lone Helicopter
Last moments of the heroic little Bonny Doon fire lookout camera
Driving through the fire
For those outside of the area and unaware, an oppressive heat wave and rolling blackouts late last week led up to a freak massive fast moving middle-of-the-night electrical storm with huge erratic wind gusts and over 10,000 lightning strikes pounding Big Sur, Monterey, Santa Cruz, the Bay Area and beyond, sparked nearly 370 fires, and NOAA and the NWS declared four separate emergency advisories for the area.
I woke up to the wind at around 2:30AM and went outside to see what was going on (I know, not the smartest idea--I can't help it, I was raised in California we almost never have real storms and have no real storm sense..), the picture below (not taken by me) is representative of the near constant pounding of lightning that rolled in off the coast with impressive speed and force, with huge gusts of wind and strange intermittent fog. Its impossible to describe but it was by far the most extreme and strange weather I have been out in in California, and it came out of nowhere.
That was early morning the night of the 16th, the next day I was surprised that the inevitable wild fires caused by the lightning strikes at a time when the state was already so dry and hot did not seem to have manifested. Fast forward to this morning, and many of the nearly 370 fires burning around the state have exploded. Santa Cruz, the Santa Cruz Mountains and elsewhere look like something between what I imagine living on Mars would feel like and a post-apocalyptic hellscape. As of now the CZU Lightning Complex fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains has spread to over 100,000 Acres and I believe the LNU Lightning Complex Fire in Sonoma / Napa is at least that large, both are virtually 0% contained and growing rapidly and CALFIRE is stretched thin across the state.
Videos I can't figure out how to embed from Twitter:
Time Lapse, Santa Cruz Mountains
Mars like atmosphere
Lone Helicopter
Last moments of the heroic little Bonny Doon fire lookout camera
Driving through the fire
