National Weather Service

I Don't Swim in Your Toilet But Dirty Runoff Keeps Ocean Best Avoided This Weekend

No yellow tape closing beaches has gone up (yet?), but the Orange County Health Care Agency is advising divers, surfers and swimmers to stay out of coastal waters.That's because recent rains flushed contaminants via creeks, rivers and storm drains into the ocean, where unhealthy bacteria levels have ... More >>

Wind Storm That's Pounded the Rest of Southern California Kicks Ups in OC

​Orange County seemed to be spared from the "once a decade type wind storm" that has toppled trees, overturned big rigs and knocked out power to 300,000 people in Riverside, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties overnight. But while the winds are dying down in those areas, they have started to k ... More >>

Taco Bell Crime of the Week: Sign Collapses During High Winds!

​Taco Bell announced last week or so that it was cutting about 100 corporate jobs. They can make all the excuses I want, but I feel a fundamental change in the air, one akin to what took down El Torito: America is graduating from Cal-Mex to Mex-Mex. I'll, of course, TOTALLY wax poetic on the subje ... More >>

[UPDATED With Body ID'd as Missing Swimmer's:] Joewayne Benford Disappears in Pounding Surf

​UPDATE, SEPT. 19, 2:30 P.M.: The coroner has confirmed a body found by a patrol boat Thursday at a Seal Beach jetty as that of Joewayne Benford. The 24-year-old Long Beach resident disappeared while body boarding with friends in strong rip currents off Seal Beach the evening of Aug. 31. Lifeguard ... More >>

[BREAKING, PHOTOS:] Hail! Thunder! Freaky Weather Hits OC

​Thunder followed by what sounded like Buddy Rich pummeling cymbals at my side yard just woke me from my Saturday morning stupor.Looking out the back door of my Costa Mesa abode produced the sight of hail the size of, uh, really big balls of hail.Sorry, folks, not used to having to measure hail in ... More >>

[UPDATE: Newport Elementary & Beaches Closed, Small Waves in OC] No Tsunami Warning Issued For California As a Result of 8.8 Magnitude Japan Quake--Yet

​UPDATE, MARCH 11, 8:14 A.M.: Newport Elementary School has been closed.UPDATE, MARCH 11, 7:46 A.M.: Southern California is now under a tsunami advisory, rather than a warning. Waves could get as high as 7 feet up in the Central Coast, but should be more in the neighborhood of 2 feet on Orange Cou ... More >>

OC On Flash Flood Watch, Snow Summit Closed Today

​Yes, Southern California, it's true. Water is falling from the sky in a crazy phenomenon called "rain."     Which means that stuff is getting wet and people are freaking out.  It's best to be very careful out there. This morning, the National Weather Service put Orange County ... More >>

Rain, Rain, Go Away! Oh, You're Back ...

​You know how lightning and thunderstorms slammed central and south Orange County this morning--including Westminster, Huntington Beach, Santa Ana, Irvine and Costa Mesa? And how the National Weather Service issued a flood warning through 1 p.m., adding the rains would quickly lighten up and mo ... More >>

Al Gore, Please Pick Up the Newport Beach Courtesy Phone

​Those who come down with the sniffles whenever there are wide temperature fluctuations hopefully stayed out of Southern California the past couple weeks. On Sept. 27, a record was set for the hottest recorded day in 133 years. By Oct. 5, chilly rain blanketed the region. No where had a more radi ... More >>

Powerful Waves Batter the Wedge, Egos

​A powerful storm in the southern hemisphere has produced huge waves slamming the Orange County coast. Nowhere is this more evident than the bodysurfing haven in Newport Beach known as The Wedge, where waves at least 12 feet tall were slamming today.Click here for Keith May's slideshow.Waves 15 fe ... More >>

Blue Whales Amass Off an Orange Coast

​Veteran whale watchers and sports-fishing operators report dense numbers of blue whales--the largest animals ever known to have existed--frolicking off the Southern California coast, from Santa Barbara to southern Orange County.Thank our unseasonably cold weather: chilly water favorable to the sh ... More >>

You Weren't Imagining It: This July Was One of the Coldest

​If you feel like Orange County's June gloom only turned into July gloomier, you're right. The OC Register reported that, according to the National Weather Service, last July "was one of the coldest on record for coastal California." Fullerton's high temperature, for example, averaged around 79 de ... More >>

May Gray, June Gloom, July ... Oh, Why?

​Perhaps you noticed over the July 4 holiday that the "May Gray" that gave way to "June Gloom" still had not disappeared. Maybe that wetness in the driveway this morning--six days into sizzling season--had you freaked out, too.Fear not, Dallas Raines: the National Weather Service (NWS) confirms Or ... More >>

[UPDATED:] Breaking: Tornado Warning Issued for OC and Long Beach

UPDATED WITH TORNADO WARNING EXTENDING TO ORANGE COUNTY . . . ​ABC News reports the tornado warning previously issued for Long Beach and south-central Los Angeles County now includes the Orange County communities of Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Westminster, Garden Grove, Irvine, Fullerton, Costa ... More >>

Obama Opens Up Government Data; You Figure Out What It Means To OC

The tech press today is chatting about Data.gov, the newly launched website from the federal government. It makes available raw data collected by government agencies as diverse as the National Weather Service to the FBI. I spent the last half-hour trying to find pull some OC-related nugget of knowle ... More >>

Don't Fire Until You See the Reds of Their Flags

NEWS ITEM: The National Weather Service announces today a red flag warning will be in effect the rest of the week in Southern California due to unseasonably warm weather increasing the danger of fire in the local mountains.. . . AND NOW THE REST OF THE STORY: Little Saigon protesters vehemently lash ... More >>

Wednesday's Headlines. No Surprises: Disney wins

More dirt on Debbie? Yesterday we noted that Debbie Carona was doing her darndest to wriggle her way out of a case that's mainly against her husband. Wait a second, missy. Today, Christine Hanley and Garrett Therolf at the Times report that the sheriff's wife urged Orange County Fair Board director ... More >>

Wednesday's Headlines & Surprises: A Real Saint in OC

While Politicians Yap, Strickland Performs: The current issue of People celebrates Orange County’s Alena Strickland, 49, for taking in 112 foster children. Yes, 112. Even more impressive? According to the article, each child has had special needs such as autism, blindness and deafness. She doesn� ... More >>

Tuesday's Headlines & Surprises: A Blue Flame For Republicanism!

Cal-infernos Rage On: Residents at 248 Modjeska Canyon homes were evacuated in the middle of the night thanks to the arson fire that’s now burned a massive 15,000 acres in Orange County. Before sunrise the winds were relatively non-existent but the air was nasty with ash. Mail delivery folks were ... More >>

Monday's Headlines & Surprises: Red Sky at Night

As the sun rose this morning over Orange County, a huge plume of smoke near Irvine painted the horizon an eerie orange, blue, brown and gray. Renewed Santa Ana wind gusts up to 45 mph whistled through neighborhoods, blew trash cans down streets and slammed into palm trees seemingly ready to pop from ... More >>

Sunday's Headlines & Surprises: Pipe Bomb Rocks Long Beach

Bud Light No More, You Pick Again: My-Thuan Tran reports this morning that the “Starbucks generation” of Vietnamese Americans “couldn’t stand dingy” Little Saigon restaurants and is building “stylish and spotless . . . swank” restaurants in response. Bao Tran, 34, quit a job in insura ... More >>

Sunday's Headlines & Surprises: That Sneaky Chuck DeVore

Doctor No: The public hospital crisis has placed nearly two dozen private hospitals in Los Angeles and Orange counties “in dire financial straits and in danger of bankruptcy or closure,” according to a depressing report in today’s Times. Reporters Daniel Costello and Susannah Rosenblatt found ... More >>

You Are Like a Hurricane

Local nature filmmaker fixed his lens on Louisiana wetlands. Then along came Katrina...

A True Horror Classic

When the Levees Broke

Diary of a mad county

Orange County, California: 2001

The Visible Invisible Man

Bigger, Longer and Uncut