Windstorm Blasts Malibu Into Sunday Night
MALIBU (CNS/KBUU) — Wind gauges above Malibu spun up to 78 miles per hour early Sunday, and were indicating wind speeds of 35-60 mph Sunday evening in Malibu.
Sustained winds of 40 mph, gusting to 61 mph, were clocked at midafternoon at the weather gauge at Fire Camp 8, in Upper Las Flores Canyon. And those winds did not diminish as night fell.
The National Weather Service warned of winds of 30 to 40 mph, with gusts to 60 mph, as the Santa Ana winds regrouped this evening, after a slight afternoon lull.
The late-season Santa Ana marinated the Southland with hot desert winds. Midday temperatures included 88 in Fullerton, 85 in Glendale, and 85 at Leo Carrillo Beach in Malibu.
A few coastal breezes still hit the Santa Monica Bay coast, however. It was 69 degrees at 2 p.m. at Santa Monica.
At 2:13 a.m. today, the winds crossed the threshold into hurricane-force at a ranch near Boney Mountain, above Malibu, when they hit 78 mph. In the mountains in the Malibu area, peak gusts included 63 mph at Leo Carrillo Beach.
The fierce winds today left at least 1,400 customers of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power blacked out, with about 1,100 of those customers in the Pacoima area, said Department of Water and Power spokesman
Michael Ventre.
Elsewhere in Los Angeles County, spotty outages affected around 200 customer accounts in the Santa Monica Mountains, according to the Southern California Edison internet-based outage map. Spokeswoman Mary Ann Milbourn attributed those to equipment failures.
At 7 p.m., the Edison company reported zero power outages within 40 miles of Trancas. Wires were reportedly down on Malibu Road, but that could have been communcations lines or some other non-emergency.
Peak wind gust measurements in the San Gabriel Mountains included 70 miles per hour in the foothills above Lake View Terrace, 66 mph at the Chilao ranger station near Mt. Wilson and 40 mph at Sylmar.