High Sierra Topix

It was like being in the Sierra early in the morning, had a bolt hit not to far from where we live.
It lasted from 3:30 am to about 8:45 am, heavy downpours and some hail in waves.
Unfortunately there is some heavy smoke, east of San Jose, emanating from one of the canyons.
May have another round later in the evening.

Yup we experienced the same in Castro Valley although I don't recall that much rain and we didn't have hail. I heard it when it got going, then continued to sleep. My son (who has not been backpacking since 2015 and has not been up there during a thunderstorm), popped in excitedly at 8 am as a series of close ones rattled the house. I decided to get up as did Judy, but Dawn simply slept through it. She's been in so many thunderstorms in the High Sierra over the last 4 years that she wasn't too excited. She said later she heard something and initially didn't know what it was. Then she realized it was a thunderstorm and dozed off. "A lot more comfortable than sheltering in a soggy tent" she would say later. In checking the Calfire site there are several fires that have popped up in the Bay Area with a Aug 16 start including the smoke you're probably seeing which looks to be somewhere near Calaveras Reservoir (called the "Marsh Fire"). There is another one NE of Mt Diablo and another one on the east side of the north Diablo Range in the Del Puerto Canyon area. The NWS is forecasting a 30 percent of more of the same this evening and tomorrow morning.

Yeah, wife woke me up. I think she's lived on the west coast long enough that she forgot how routine lightning was back east. It was still cool to see, lots of strikes in a really short time period.

Strange times indeed. With a daughter in Florida, we thought we'd woken up in her house,,,

It was the first time my grown children had been through such a thunderstorm--and I was reminded of my time in the midwest. Of course, now we know the costs of that freak storm, and its 11,000 lightning strikes.