Storm sprinkles rain on Sacramento, sparks some lightning fires in Northern California
Thunderstorms that reached the Sacramento area Thursday night brought varying amounts of much-needed precipitation to Northern California, but also wildfire risk from lightning and gusty winds that are expected to continue Friday in some areas.
Fire officials reported a few new, relatively small fires sparked by lightning strikes in El Dorado, Placer, Nevada and Yuba counties, but no major new incidents emerged overnight.
A red flag warning for critical fire weather conditions remains in place through 11 p.m. Friday for much of Northern California, as the system continues to pass through.
Amid thunderclaps, brief spurts of showers drizzled on Sacramento a few hours after the city hit a high of 97 degrees.
Sacramento Executive Airport got 0.05 inches of rain by 8 a.m., the National Weather Service’s Sacramento office said in a tweet, its most in any day since March 18.
Heavier amounts fell to the east within the county: 0.28 inches near Rancho Cordova, 0.16 inches near Folsom and 0.11 inches near Antelope.
While meaningful amounts of rain don’t often fall in Sacramento until about mid-October, significant precipitation in late summer is not unheard of. Sacramento’s all-time record for Thursday’s date is a quarter-inch, set Sept. 9, 1985, weather service records show.
Across Northern California, precipitation totals ranged from zero to roughly one-third to a half inch of rain, weather service meteorologist Scott Rowe said.
Some of Thursday’s heaviest rain came in the northern Sacramento Valley, near Redding. Redding Airport recorded 0.38 inches, Rowe said, which is just shy of the 0.45 inches that the site averages for the entire month of September.
Rowe said Northern California is starting to enter the transitional period between the dry season and wet season, but that the brief thunderstorm system, while helpful, has been scattered.
“We’re looking for a system that would impact all of Northern California,” Rowe said. “We still have a long way to go in terms of any terms of drought-related relief or wildfire-related relief.”
Still, Rowe said, “any rain at this point in time would help.”
A lingering chance of showers near Sacramento was expected to clear out by midday Friday. The capital region is set for sunny skies and high temperatures in the upper 80s to low 90s this weekend and on Monday, forecasts show.
Some new fires overnight
Cal Fire reported some lightning-sparked fires in the Sierra Nevada foothills.
Crews responded to multiple small lightning fires ignited late Thursday in El Dorado County, requiring the agency to divert some resources from the Caldor Fire. Cal Fire’s Nevada-Yuba-Placer unit also reported “multiple calls of lightning fires” late Thursday night, after lightning struck trees in Granite Bay in Placer County, Chicago Park in Nevada County and Dobbins in Yuba County.
The largest of the El Dorado incidents, the Kanaka Fire, burned a little over 6 acres near Rescue before forward progress was stopped, Cal Fire’s Amador-El Dorado unit said in a tweet. It was 5% contained as of early Friday morning and did not require any evacuations.
Lightning ‘minimal’ at Caldor Fire
As for the Caldor Fire itself, Cal Fire and U.S. Forest Service officials in a Friday morning update wrote that lightning activity within the fire perimeter was “minimal” overnight, “though a large concentration of strikes occurred on the west shore of Lake Tahoe.”
Around 0.07 inches of rain fell overnight near South Lake Tahoe, with closer to a quarter-inch recorded along the west shore of the lake, according to the weather service.
A chance of scattered thunderstorms remains throughout the morning in the Lake Tahoe Basin, weather service forecasts show. The morning incident report also said firefighters must be vigilant amid changing weather conditions.
Activity on Dixie Fire as blaze passes 950,000 acres
Officials said the Dixie Fire, burning in parts of Butte, Lassen, Tehama and Plumas counties in the Sierra Nevada foothills, saw increased winds overnight after the cold front passed, leading to active runs near the community of Hat Creek.
Cal Fire and the Forest Service report the fire at 950,591 acres (1,485 square miles) with 59% containment.
This story was originally published September 10, 2021 at 8:36 AM with the headline "Storm sprinkles rain on Sacramento, sparks some lightning fires in Northern California."
