High Wind — San Luis Obispo County Interior Valleys, California

2005-01-07 · San Luis Obispo County Interior Valleys, California

Wider weather episode

A powerful Pacific storm brought heavy rain, snow, flash flooding, high winds and landslides to Central and Southern California. During the 5 day event, rainfall totals ranged from 3 to 10 inches over coastal areas with up to 32 inches in the mountains. With such copious rainfall, flash flooding was a serious problem across Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties. In Santa Barbara county, flash flooding and mudslides closed Gibraltar Road at Mt. Calvary Road, stranding several vehicles, while mudslides inundated 3 homes in Lake Casitas. Across Ventura county, flash flooding and mudslides closed down Creek Road at Hermosa Road. In addition, the Ventura Beach RV Resort was flooded and Highways 1 and 126 were closed due to flooding. Across Los Angeles county, flash flooding killed a homeless man in Elysian Park, flooded a mobile home park in Santa Clarita, closed Highway 1 and caused numerous problems in Palmdale. In the mountains, 4 to 12 feet of snowfall was recorded along with southeast winds between 30 and 50 MPH with higher gusts. Across the Central Coast and in the Salinas River Valley, high winds gusting to 65 MPH knocked down numerous trees and power lines. In La Conchita, a devastating mudslide killed 10 people, destroyed 15 homes and damaged 12 other homes. Overall, damage estimates for the entire series of storms that started December 27th, 2004 and ended on January 11th, 2005 were easily over $200 million with the most damage incurred by agricultural interests in Ventura county.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 5438728. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.