Today was VERY COOL! As you probably know, thunderstorms in the Los Angeles area are infrequent. And, thunderstorms that produce vivid lightning displays are very rare around here. These higher-end displays are much more likely during the late summer and early fall, when monsoon moisture from the south is around. Even rarer is being ready with the camera and able to venture out to photograph such an event! I hope that I am making myself clear when I say that it is difficult to obtain decent local lightning images for an L.A.-area photographer!
So on this particular date, as a winter-type system from the Pacific Ocean approached Southern California, I was not really thinking about lightning photography. There was a chance of thunderstorms in the forecast, and during the daytime a couple of areas offshore and near the Central California coast showed storm cells with lightning strikes. Fast-moving (elevated) thunderstorm cells were approaching Malibu and the Point Mugu area (to my south and southwest) as I prepared a dinner meal for myself. There were reports of thunder in Moorpark, just 15 minutes away. Some thunder rolled above my house in Westlake Village. YES! I went outside to check out the sky, and almost immediately a huge, wonderfully-branched CG (cloud-to-ground) strike flashed to my southwest, just a few miles away! WOW! That just does not happen around here! The cloud base was quite high for a winter storm system. This activity was in front of (east of) the closed system offshore. Typically, cool-season thunderstorm activity is associated with the cold air behind the front. This stuff was in front of the front. It was certainly weird.
Darn. My dinner food was ready to eat, and I wanted to grab my camera bag and get out to shoot this. I gulped down a few bites and headed out. One mile down the road, near the Ventura Freeway, a bolt and a crash of thunder rocked the Xterra and set off car alarms. YES again! I needed to get to a high spot FAST. A couple of minutes later I was on top of a hill with a good view to the south, but the dumb storm was moving so fast, it was now to my north. A couple of good flashes in that direction were behind hills.
Well, that particular cell was done. It was a little after sunset and the light was nice, but it would be dark soon. Should I go back home and finish my meal? My phone radar showed additional activity approaching the Malibu coastline. There is a great viewpoint or two in the hills above Malibu (to my south). I have frequently thought about how awesome it would be to set the tripod up at one of these elevated viewpoints and to photograph lightning over the ocean. I elected to give myself a chance and to head to Malibu via Decker and Encinal roads. If a great lightning display is going to occur, then I need to be ready when it happens. I can’t sit at home and shoot lightning over the ocean!
Thirty minutes later, I was at one of the viewpoints above Malibu (along Encinal Canyon Road). Not much was happening, except for a band of activity with a lot of lightning well to my west, near Oxnard. This was about 30 minutes away. With nothing else approaching Malibu, I decided to head west on PCH. I reached Point Mugu, and saw some flashes in the distance to my west. These were really nice, but still too far away. Meanwhile, a new cell was now over the water and approaching the area that I had just left. UGH! It was to my southeast, and I raced back east on PCH. Another 20 minutes or so of driving back to the east, and I was back up on Encinal Canyon with my great view of the ocean and Point Dume. A cell was out over the water to my south, and moving to the northeast. The lightning was infrequent, though, and now it was raining on me. I think I managed a couple of mediocre shots. This wasn’t really working out as I had hoped, and I put the tripod into the Xterra. Another flash offshore was pretty good, though! I set the camera back onto the tripod and tried my luck again. Again, not much luck. The best activity seemed to be too far away to the southeast, and a little too infrequent with the CGs.
I packed up again, and this time started driving home. I went about 8 miles (about 1/3 of the way home), and noticed an additional bright flash or two behind me. UGH. I think my iPhone battery was dead by now, so I had no radar to look at. But with new activity to my south, I needed to be back up on my hill with a view! I turned around.
Back at my spot, with a great view to the southeast of Point Dume and Santa Monica Bay, things were looking better! A storm cell was sparking to my south, and then SSE and SE, as it moved to the northeast into Santa Monica Bay. I got some decent images with this one as it was perhaps 10-15 miles away. I could hear thunder with it. Another cell or two followed it into the bay and towards LAX and vicinity, with a few flashes each minute. My longer (70-200mm) lens was required to capture the CGs, with some nice ones behind Point Dume. The lightning was a little more distant than I would have preferred, but one should not complain about any decent lightning display here in coastal Southern California! I had finally managed to get my “lightning-over-the ocean” shots from Malibu. (About 18 months earlier I had an even better display from San Nicolas Island.)
The show eventually moved more inland to my east and northeast, and I got back home after 11 p.m.
The map below shows where the lightning strikes were during the best display timeframe for me, from about 9:30 to 10:30 p.m. The red X marks my location, WNW of Point Dume.
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