About 1100 lightning strikes the ground in California in one night: they caused wildfires

On the night of September 9-10, a wave of powerful thunderstorms swept across California. The night sky exploded with 1100 lightning bolts that sparked new wildfires across the state. CNN.

Photo: Shutterstock

"Approximately 1100 lightning strikes overnight," the National Weather Service in San Francisco tweeted.

In the bay area alone, about 110 confirmed lightning strikes have been counted.

The Meteorological Service said there were too many cloud-to-cloud flares to count.

The lightning strikes were detected by sensors on the NOAA satellite and could be seen throughout the state.

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While many of these storms brought some useful rainfall to a drought-stricken region such as San Francisco, many were "dry thunderstorms."

A dry thunderstorm occurs when the air that is exposed to rain is so dry that the rain evaporates before it hits the ground.

“For most outside of the western states, lightning means heavy rain. And while some storms do bring rain, many are considered dry storms that don't produce enough rainfall to put out the resulting fires,” explains meteorologist Chad Myers.

“Lightning in California causes significant wildfires every year,” Myers said. “Many of the largest wildfires in California history were caused by lightning strikes.”

Unfortunately, this was the case this time too.

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In the Sacramento area, "we saw most of the activity near the Sacramento Valley and parts of the mountains, including the Caldor Fire area," said meteorologist Idamis Del Valle.

“Firefighters had to take time away from the Caldor Fire to battle multiple fires late on September 9 throughout El Dorado County,” the California Fire Department tweeted.

This is all due to the drought caused by climate change.

“The drought is part of a vicious cycle that is getting worse,” said meteorologist Brandon Miller. “During a severe drought, as we currently have in California, there is significantly less water and moisture in the ground and therefore in the atmosphere due to the lack of evaporation. This makes 'dry thunderstorms' much more likely in a dry year."

Lightning dies down and wind picks up

And although thunderstorm activity has decreased, the fires that caused the lightning have not disappeared. As soon as the storms died down, the wind picked up.

Windy conditions are expected for California's two largest fires, the Dixie Fire and the Caldor Fire.

Winds will increase and persist, according to the Fire Department, "with gusts of up to 60 miles (96 km) per hour on summits and 40 miles (64 km) per hour in valleys, resulting in more active fire behavior and greater potential for fire spreading." ...

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