Weather, Storms & Hurricane Blog

San Diego / Malibu / Lake Arrowhead Wildfires

A very unnerving day for 100’s of thousands in Southern California on Monday and overnight, as one of the worst “Firestorm” in over a decade is out of control in prime drought conditions from Malibu to San Diego. Over 260,000 residents have been evacuated from the affected area’s. The San Diego, Malibu and Lake Arrowhead fire videos and pictures coming on the networks is just unbelievable and hard to watch has peoples huge homes burn up in front of them.

Just in the Lake Arrowhead, CA area, 123 structures have been destroyed by wildfires in the last 24 hours. In the San Diego fires, the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park; and animals have been evacuated as the fires have become a major threat. Six counties in Southern California area are under the gun for more fires and severe damage as the fires continue to rage out of control. The weather conditions are ripe for continued fueling of the fires with hot dry air, and a lot of dry ground conditions. Much of Southern California has seen less than 2 inches of rain over much of 2007. I’ll be watching this horrific event throughout the day, and I’m in contact with a few Storm Chasers out there.

Mobile Alabama Tornado Strikes Homes

While the big news on Monday was the dangerous wildfires in Southern California, there was some severe weather news back east along the northern Gulf coast. There was one tornado report at last look. A tornado touched down near Irvington, Alabama, outside of Mobile Bay. Several trailer homes were damage or leveled due to the tornado in Mobile county. There have been no reports of anyone hurt.

This is all part of a slow moving system that is expected to shift the severe storms eastward into Georgia and Florida later today. Both Florida and Georgia could use any rain from this system to help with drought conditions, but this all could put a hold on NASA’s Discovery launch later today.

Space Shuttle Discovery Launch STS-120 Mission

I had planned weeks ago to attend the Space Shuttle Launch that is scheduled for later this morning, but I have obligations now in Miami at the same time of the launch, and will miss it this time around. I have been up to the Cape the last 3 Shuttle launches since last winter. There is a chance though this launch could get scrubbed due to bad weather as the storm system moving through the Florida Panhandle overnight, will be possibly moving into the central Florida area at the time of the 11:38am expected launch time. If the launch is canceled, they will try again on Wednesday or Thursdays pending weather conditions. I’ll keep you posted if I’m back in for a launch viewing.

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