A blustery late-autumn storm drenched the San Diego area with heavy, wind-whipped downpours Tuesday, delivering the first significant local rainfall in months amid flooded roadways and widespread power outages.
The cloudbursts began soaking the county several hours before daybreak, starting in its northern reaches and moving rapidly south, according to the National Weather Service.
As of midday, the showers had dropped anywhere from a few hundredths of an inch to more than two inches of moisture across the region, the federal agency reported.
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Before noon, traffic delays and some spinout crashes were reported on local freeways amid the rain. On Interstate 15, a vehicle spun out and crashed into the center divide on slick roadways. On I-8 near College Avenue, traffic was slow going as heavy downpours struck vehicles. One driver went down an embankment but was expected to survive.
As the gusty winds howled through the county, power outages left thousands of San Diego Gas & Electric customers without electrical service, the utility company reported.
A predawn blackout struck San Diego coastal communities, including Ocean Beach, Sunset Cliffs, Point Loma, the Midway district and Lindbergh Field, leaving 3,700 addresses in the dark.
In the late morning, a spate of outages left about 10,800 homes and businesses without electrical service across northern San Diego County, according to SDG&E. Affected communities included Bear Valley, Carlsbad, Daley Ranch, the Dixon Lake area, Escondido, Harmony Grove, La Costa, the Lake Hodges area, the Lake Wohlford area, Rancho Santa Fe, San Marcos and Skyline Ranch.
An afternoon outage impacting the Lake Murray/Mission Gorge/Sycamore Canyon/La Mesa communities was caused by a foreign object striking a power line, according to SDG&E.
As for rainfall, the NWS reported the following 24-hour totals as of 5 p.m.:
- Coastal
- Fallbrook RAS: 1.83 inches
- Lake O'Neill: 1.81 inches
- Fashion Valley: 1.49 inches
- Oceanside: 1.45 inches
- Miramar: 1.30 inches
- Carlsbad: 1.28 inches
- Valleys
- Rainbow Camp: 2.30 inches
- Mt. Woodson: 2.18 inches
- Skyline Ranch: 2.07 inches
- Valley Center: 1.91 inches
- Deer Springs: 1.88 inches
- Escondido: 1.76 inches
- Mountains
- Palomar Observatory: 4.44 inches
- Boucher Hills: 2.89 inches
- Henshaw Dam: 2.54 inches
- Pine Hills: 2.45 inches
- La Jolla Ern Tanks: 2.33 inches
- Big Black Mountain: 2.26 inches
The storm also brought high surf to San Diego, so much so that lifeguards closed the Ocean Beach Pier. If the pier isn't damaged, it will reopen once the storm passes, lifeguards said.
The drenched roadways across the region led to a spate of traffic headaches for commuters, including a flooded stretch of freeway on state Route 94 near College Grove Drive in the Oak Park district of San Diego, shortly before 1 p.m.; large tumbleweeds in traffic lanes on state Route 905 near Interstate 805 in Otay Mesa during the noon hour; a downed tree across De Luz Road at Green Valley Road in Fallbrook, shortly before 12:30 p.m.; and an errant traffic sign on the roadway on northbound I-5, north of Carlsbad Village Drive in Carlsbad in the early afternoon, the California Highway Patrol reported.
Local
Most of the widespread precipitation was expected to fall through the mid-afternoon, then taper off from northwest to southeast into the early evening and dwindle out completely by midnight, the NWS advised.
Light rain will be a possibility in the county late Thursday into Friday, with dry and slightly warmer conditions expected to prevail through the weekend, forecasters advised.
