PG&E Storm Outage Prediction Project - 9/12/2009 lightning event.
This event represents a classic case where the PG&E Service Area receives significant sustained power outages caused by cloud to ground lightning. The weather conditions for this event are very typical of past events, which models have generally missed. These events typically occur between late August and early October. The basic conditions are an elevated moist unstable layer (in this case remnant moisture drifting north from hurricane Linda), combined with a shortwave, which causes synoptic scale lift of the moist mixed layer in just the right location to produce elevated convection. In this case the lightning happened over very populated areas, leading to significant power outages.
24 hour lightning strikes ending 11AM 9-12-2009. (Most strikes in this image occurred between 3 AM and 11 AM)
Photo from downtown San Jose 5:00 AM
250 MB winds and Sat overlay for two days leading up to the event.
IR imagery for two days up to the event.
12Z OAK Sounding text, and 12Z OAK Sounding image. (this was at a time of active cloud to ground strikes)
NAM 218, and NAM 212 model output for the event.
WDT-WRF model output for the event.
