Graphic Shows Rain Helped Douse North Bay Lightning Starts

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Sonoma County and North Bay fire crews were helped Sunday morning by rain that helped to control a series of lightning-sparked fires along the path of severe thunderstorms that rocked the region.

Although scores of lightning strikes were recorded across the North Bay between 4AM and 6AM, there were no major fires burning in the immediate region as of Sunday afternoon. While beefed up staffing and equipment levels helped to insure that lightning-caused fires were caught early-on by crews, rains that accompanied the storms also helped to douse or slow many fire starts.

This National Weather Service graphic shows a computer analysis of where the rain fell early Sunday morning along the path that storms took through the Bay Area, Marin, Napa, Sonoma and Lake counties. Unlike many other lightning-caused Red Flag events, storms this time brought more subtropical moisture along with them, and fewer high-based dry-lightning cells.

Rainfall amounts ranging from a trace to a half inch or more was detected along the storms’ path.

Meanwhile, the largest lightning-caused fires currently burning in the Bay Area are the Marsh Fire east of Milpitas in Santa Clara County estimated at around 600 acres, the Deer Zone Complex southwest of Brentwood in eastern Contra Costa County estimated at more than 200 acres, and the River Fire south of Salinas in Monterey County at 150 acres.