5 ms·

There are plenty of Bay Area adults who can't remember the last time there was lightning here. It's that rare. Fun times! I worry about wildfire in the hills

There are plenty of Bay Area adults who can't remember the last time there was lightning here. It's that rare. Fun times! I worry about wildfire in the hills, since it hadn't rained for months. Thankfully, it wasn't an entirely dry storm. We had quite a bit of rain in my corner of Palo Alto last night - more than the 0.01 trace amount officially reported.

vmception 6y ago
The great thing about having so many transplants is that nobody cares about basic weather patterns like this. The only news is the fires if there are an abnormal amount of them.
- Redoubts 6y ago
  Yeah seriously. This gave me flashbacks to Boston.
kurthr 6y ago
Adults in the Bay Area. who can't remember lightning have memory issues. There was a huge [lightning] storm in 2012, and there was lighting in [edit: this] May... I've seen lighting, thunder, and hail (caught on video) in the last 12 months. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Thunder-lightning-could-hit-Bay-Area-in-weekend-15303095.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Thunder-lightnin...
- samcheng 6y ago
  Hmm. I must have slept through the 2012 event. This one definitely woke me up. I do remember a glorious ~2004-ish thunderstorm, right at dusk, rolling over the Santa Cruz mountains. So maybe a little more than once a decade or so for the big lightning events?
- ianai 6y ago
  I thought it rained frequently there? I love far enough away to not know. Have also lived in the driest part of the US in the past...gratefully the past.
  - gkop 6y ago
    It rains quite a bit in winter, especially November through January. But lightning is very rare.
dehrmann 6y ago
> I worry about wildfire in the hills, since it hadn't rained for months. The Bay Area rarely gets summer rain, and what we get is pretty negligible. Since you said "hills," here's what I found for La Honda: https://wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?ca4660 https://wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?ca4660
Fishysoup 6y ago
It was bananas. Glad it rained too because wildfires are the last thing we need with all the madness this year has been throwing at us.

vmception 6y ago

The great thing about having so many transplants is that nobody cares about basic weather patterns like this. The only news is the fires if there are an abnormal amount of them.

Redoubts 6y ago
Yeah seriously. This gave me flashbacks to Boston.

kurthr 6y ago

Adults in the Bay Area. who can't remember lightning have memory issues. There was a huge [lightning] storm in 2012, and there was lighting in [edit: this] May... I've seen lighting, thunder, and hail (caught on video) in the last 12 months. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Thunder-lightning-could-hit-Bay-Area-in-weekend-15303095.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Thunder-lightnin...

samcheng 6y ago
Hmm. I must have slept through the 2012 event. This one definitely woke me up. I do remember a glorious ~2004-ish thunderstorm, right at dusk, rolling over the Santa Cruz mountains. So maybe a little more than once a decade or so for the big lightning events?
ianai 6y ago
I thought it rained frequently there? I love far enough away to not know. Have also lived in the driest part of the US in the past...gratefully the past.
- gkop 6y ago
  It rains quite a bit in winter, especially November through January. But lightning is very rare.

dehrmann 6y ago

> I worry about wildfire in the hills, since it hadn't rained for months. The Bay Area rarely gets summer rain, and what we get is pretty negligible. Since you said "hills," here's what I found for La Honda: https://wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?ca4660 https://wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?ca4660

Fishysoup 6y ago

It was bananas. Glad it rained too because wildfires are the last thing we need with all the madness this year has been throwing at us.