
It's been a pretty insane 12 hours across the Bay Area - apsec112
https://www.wrh.noaa.gov/total_forecast/getprod.php?new&prod=XXXAFDMTR&wfo=mtr
======
samcheng
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.

~~~
kurthr
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-
lightnin...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Thunder-lightning-
could-hit-Bay-Area-in-weekend-15303095.php)

~~~
ianai
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
It rains quite a bit in winter, especially November through January. But
lightning is very rare.

------
IAmGraydon
I'm in Southeastern VA. We had our first hurricane this year in early August,
which is very unusual for for region. July was unusually hot with no rain, and
now August is nothing but rain every day. What's most interesting to me,
however, is that it seems that weather prediction models have literally
stopped working all together. I use Windy.com (incredible weather site if you
haven't tried it) and you can look at the ECMWF (aka European model), NAM, GFS
and Meteoblue models. ECMWF is the most accurate model we have, and it has
always been very reliable in my experience. Starting this spring, it seems the
model has become wildly inaccurate. It can't even predict the weather anywhere
close to accurately even the same day. Highs and lows are often off by 10
degrees F, and rain...forget it.

I don't know the exact source of these inaccuracies, but I would be willing to
bet climate change has broken some of the assumptions that these models rely
on to make their predictions. Those factors may be in a state of flux so that
the model can't even be corrected at this point.

I would be very interested to hear from anyone else who is familiar with ECMWF
and has (or hasn't) noticed the same problems.

~~~
spacephysics
I believe I heard on NPR that due to the grounding of many planes from Covid,
weather models have less data points for prediction.

~~~
sliken
Normal passenger planes provide significant data collection for weather
predictions?

------
jonwinstanley
UK weather has been very odd over the last 12 months. We’ve just had a week of
record August temperatures, and very few people in the UK have air
conditioning in their homes.

Climate change seems to be really starting to have measurable day-to-day
affects.

~~~
seizethecheese
Here in Seattle we’ve had an exceedingly mild summer. Anecdotes work in both
directions.

~~~
sci_prog
No, climate change works in both directions. It causes extremes in both
directions. Source: I have a PhD in Oceanography with focus on climate
modeling

~~~
seizethecheese
So, you agree that anecdotes are worthless? I don’t understand your comment.

~~~
sharkmerry
I think OP meant those anecdotes are both examples of climate change. Causing
extreme wildness and extreme craziness elsewhere

~~~
hackeraccount
climate change just causes bad weather. So when the weather is bad you can
just say - "That's climate change for you."

Some people complain about this, me, I think about the poor bastards in the
past who had no response at all and I think, "eh, it's an ill wind indeed that
blows no good."

------
ChuckMcM
Not nearly as common at night. The last time I recall a night time
thunderstorm was in the 80's. That said, this morning at dawn it felt straight
out of a movie thriller. All we needed was the leading edge of an alien
spacecraft to emerge from the cloud bank :-).

It was also interesting to note on Nextdoor the Midwesterners who were unfazed
by the storm and people who have lived here their entire lives freaking out.
Those roles reverse when we have a magnitude 5.x or lower quake.

------
rediguanayum
I love the NOAA commentary as it adds context to what is expected.

Having (barely) slept through the bay area weather this morning, others took
advantage of the situation to get some gorgeous photos of lightning.
[https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/08/16/rare-august-
thu...](https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/08/16/rare-august-thunderstorm-
rolls-through-san-francisco-bay-area-lightning-strikes-sparks-widespread-
wildfires/)

There's also some maps for lightning strikes in the bay area that are fun to
look at:
[https://www.lightningmaps.org/?lang=en#m=oss;t=3;s=0;o=0;b=;...](https://www.lightningmaps.org/?lang=en#m=oss;t=3;s=0;o=0;b=;ts=0;y=37.3228;x=-121.9762;z=9;d=2;dl=2;dc=0;ar;as=20-08-16T12;src=6;ts24=0;)
(8-16-20, 12 UTC for example)

------
huy-nguyen
When the National Weather Service calls something “insane” in their bulletins,
you know it’s actually insane.

~~~
ak217
It's insane by Bay Area standards, but having lived in Atlanta it reminds me
of typical Southeast summer weather.

~~~
40four
Yeah, I read most of it. Sounds nasty. Lots of wind, lightning, only scattered
rain though?

I can’t really figure out what is so insane, or even very interesting about
this at all? Just that it’s uncharacteristic for the area? Is it that a large
number of HNers are in the Bay Area this is trending?

~~~
c54
It’s quite unexpected weather for the region— though of course what’s
seriously abnormal in one place might be old normal hat for another. The dumb
example here is “Oh, snow in the sahara? Well, here in Alaska we get snow all
the time so what’s the big deal!”

For me the chief concerning thing is the “literally dozens of new fires”
around the area.

~~~
40four
This is true. I was confused at first, but I can imagine how it would be
jarring to locals. Let’s hope the fires don’t get out of control.

I live in the south east, I remember a few years ago we were in a serious
drought, and we experienced a run of widespread wildfires. For weeks on end
there was a visible ‘fog’ in the air from the smoke. Very strange.

~~~
Izkata
> Let’s hope the fires don’t get out of control.

In the realm of Apocalypse 2020, yesterday (Saturday) northern California had
a fire tornado.

------
WalterBright
I've been reading about rolling power blackouts in California due to excessive
demand. Shouldn't this situation be ideal for solar power? high power demand
during the day, lots of daylight hours?

~~~
lawguy
Look at the "Net demand trend" graph here, and take a look at yesterday:
[http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/default.aspx](http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/default.aspx)

Non-renewables (edit: all minus solar and wind), hit their peak at 6pm and
stayed there until 8:30pm.

The problem is that solar isn't available during the late evening hours,
where, e.g., A/C demand remains high.

~~~
sliken
Provide a financial benefit for those who use during peak power (to day get
their home down to with AC 65F) while solar production is high, and then turn
off their AC from 5-9.

~~~
beamatronic
I’ve heard of people charging up their powerwall at night with cheap power.
(TOU plans) And then they consume that power when electricity is normally
expensive

------
vikramkr
I can't say I've read a ton of NWS weather bulletins, but are they usually so
colloquial in the discussion or is this one of those "so nuts its warranted"
situations?

~~~
vitaflo
Entirely depends on who is writing it. I like to read the forecast discussions
because they tend to give more of the rationale for the forecast. You learn
the thought process that goes into it, based on what they're seeing.

That said I'm also a trained severe weather spotter so the forecast discussion
is where I go to see if spotter activation may be likely or not.

~~~
mjrpes
I've found one benefit to reading the bulletins is they give context to how
they are generating weather probabilities. They may say there's a 50% change
of rain 5 days from now, but then you learn this is because computer model "A"
says 100% chance of rain, while computer model "B" says 0% chance, so they
split the difference. Or maybe they say chance of rain is 80%, because model
"B" is often off in this specific weather scenario.

It's also fun when some major storm is coming in and they are like "PWAT
values are over 2 inches... this is historic!"

------
samcheng
By the way, if you want to learn a bit more about your local weather, start
reading your local "Area Forecast Discussion" (just search for that phrase
plus your local region / airport) - you'll end up predicting the weather on a
qualitative basis, while picking up new vocabulary and observing more about
the world around you.

I think the format predates ASCII.

As a bonus, if you watch the local news on TV, you'll hear the local weather
personalities parrot language from these forecast discussions...

------
LargoLasskhyfv
Meh. You have seen nothing! Imagine walking home at night, along a park which
gives unusually wide views of some parts the horizon. Weather feels OK,
partially cloudy. Nonetheless something is _OFF_.

What is "off"? Startled you see glowing and flashing clouds, but it is so far
away, you can't exactly tell. Also dark. And no sound of thunder at all? Then
you see tiny bright threads arcing between mountains of towering dark clouds,
maybe 30 to 45° upwards from the horizon. The dark clouds begin to glow
stroboscopically. Still no sound at all. It shines pink, violet, electric
whiteblue, orange, yellow, sometimes, especially in the upper regions even
greenish. You stand there, awestruck, and still don't know what it is. Cars on
the street stop, drivers getting out, asking you what that is, because they've
seen it since maybe 10 minutes, and didn't know what it was either.

You tell them you have no clue, never seen something like this before, but
it's probably just a large thunderstorm, far away and high up in the sky,
maybe 50 to 60km away.

About 10 minutes later, back home, you open
[https://www.lightningmaps.org/?lang=en](https://www.lightningmaps.org/?lang=en)
and see an inferno unfolding. It dawns on you that the "tiny threads" which
flickered horizontally between the glowing clouds for up to 1.5 seconds must
have been dozens of kilometers long.

For some strange reason I had clear line of sight in form of a cone into that
front, maybe 60 to 80° wide. Very unusual.

Next day the media is full of it. Also some very impressive videos of it in
the net.

Anyways, I'd have expected that one can see this far from some mountaintop, or
tower, or a plane, but not from the ground.

TBH my first thought was: Is _this_ how it(WWIII) begins?

------
chrisamiller
I'm sure this is abnormal for the Bay Area, but insane seems kind of overblown
- this doesn't sound out of the ordinary for the midwest at all.
Thunderstorms, hail, and occasional tornados are routine in the summer.

Just last week, the windspeed equivalent of a category 2 hurricane rolled
through IA/MO/IL, destroying homes, business, and billions of dollars of
crops:
[https://twitter.com/coldbrewedtool/status/129407960042804429...](https://twitter.com/coldbrewedtool/status/1294079600428044290)

~~~
ghouse
In the 26 years I've been in the bay area, nothing like last night has
occurred here. So, a qualified "insane" for the Bay Area.

------
swayvil
Strange weather here in Southern IL too. Wettest August I've ever seen (In my
~30 years here).

It's supposed to be dead dry right now. It was dead dry last August.

But now we've been getting random thunderstorms almost daily.

Weirdass weather.

~~~
11235813213455
It's called (human-induced) climate changes

~~~
ed25519FUUU
Wait i thought the problem is that it creates droughts, not _more_ wet
weather?

Or is it one of those things we could to point at if the needle moves in any
direction?

~~~
gvjddbnvdrbv
Climate change causes... climate change. Whatever the climate has been for
centuries in your area it will probably be different in the next 10-20 years.
It might be warmer, wetter, cooler, drier or just more variable. It's hard to
predict.

~~~
11235813213455
Exactly, it causes more instability, plus a slightly but steadily growing
temperature.

And unfortunately, vegetables, plants, trees, nature like stability

------
stunt
While a lot of it is just humor, some people are really nervous about
everything because of COVID19.

It seems pandemic stress is intensifying our feeling about other events.
People immediately relate every incident to 2020 as if everything is getting
worst.

I don't remember any year that some places on earth didn't report unusual
weather conditions. Maybe people are reading more news and incident news are
trendy and get more coverage.

------
booleanbetrayal
Meanwhile in Colorado, dry conditions and lightning sparked the Pine Gulch
fire, which is just one of four major fires ongoing right now. People are
getting pretty concerned.

[https://www.denverpost.com/2020/08/16/colorado-wildfires-
pin...](https://www.denverpost.com/2020/08/16/colorado-wildfires-pine-gulch-
grizzly-creek-cameron-peak-williams-fork/)

------
sizzle
The NOAA.gov mobile site is a joy to use and should be a case study on usable
mobile design. Everything is where it needs to be, contextually relevant, and
easy to navigate back and forth between cities and forecasts. Check it out if
you haven't already, if you add it as a bookmark on your home screen
(Android), you can launch it as a webview chromeless app.

------
unemphysbro
Coincidently, the transformer unit in our neighborhood failed on Friday.

The storm was a welcome surprise.

------
craftinator
As a former forecaster, I've always appreciated the little Easter eggs and
irreverent comments that are occasionally embedded in forecast discussions...
But yeah, this actually sounds like insane conditions for that area.

------
fastball
2500 lightning strikes does sound like a lot. Would be interesting to know how
the world stacks up in terms of "average lightning strikes per hour" during a
typical thunderstorm for that area.

~~~
ghouse
> during a typical thunderstorm for that area.

That's why this is "insane." It's not typical to have _any_ thunderstorms in
this area. It's also not typical to have rain in August.

------
supernova87a
I don't know how in my mind weather forecasts and discussion from NWS came to
carry such weight, but they do. Generally, they are not BSing.

I think the most frightening thing to read in Courier all caps is, "EFFORTS TO
PROTECT LIFE AND PROPERTY SHOULD NOW BE RUSHED TO COMPLETION".

F-- Twitter and the political BS, this kind of all caps is real.

------
b34r
Gusty wind gusts

------
40four
So this is news because lighting is so rare there, it’s literally ‘once in a
lifetime’!? I couldn’t figure out why this was here :) It is kind of weird to
see this kind of reaction, to those of us in most other parts of the country.

Edit: I didn’t really appreciate the drought conditions, let’s hope the
wildfires don’t get bad.

~~~
btilly
Tell me any part of the country where it wouldn't be news to have months of
essentially no rain, followed by 1200 lightning strikes, still with very
little rain.

The issue isn't simply the lightning (that would be rare in the Bay area). It
is the lightning combined with drought conditions making wildfires a major
issue.

~~~
yummypaint
Alot of the eastern edge of the rockies meet this criteria. Take a look at the
string of hotspots between Denver and the southern border. Those are mostly in
desert climates where it isnt terribly unusual to go without rain. As you
would expect, fires are a major problem there as well.

[https://ecle.biz/wp-
content/uploads/2017/03/avg_sd_2005-2014...](https://ecle.biz/wp-
content/uploads/2017/03/avg_sd_2005-2014_CONUS_2km_grid.png)

~~~
btilly
You are right.

The population density is probably lower though.

------
WarOnPrivacy
I'd expect geocentrism from local media but not a federal domain.

There are numerous bay areas in the US. Maybe drop an SF in that headline
NOAA?

~~~
stonogo
It's a local area forecast discussion from the local office and the local area
is officially named "San Francisco Bay Area/Monterey". What do you want from
them exactly?

------
neilv
There's additional evidence that someone is adopting Colloquial Millennial in
a Federal weather advisory:

> _The biggest impact appears to have been numerous fire starts. The fire
> agencies are still flying recon but literally dozens of new fires from the
> North Bay, East Bay, South Bay, Santa Cruz mtns and down to Monterey._

I don't understand the need to say "literally" there.

Until recently, "literally" was a powerful word, arguably best held in reserve
for important occasions. The most recent years of popular use have diluted it.

I don't believe that "literally" was intended to be said by a speaker numerous
times each day, to be a filler word like "um", nor for general-purpose
emphasis, nor to express unhinged enthusiasm, nor to convey "listen to me, I
am the center of the universe right now!", nor to plead "I'm actually not
lying this time".

I blame Rob Lowe for this (and other things).

~~~
nickysielicki
What I take issue with is that _there’s no verb in the second part of that
sentence_. The overuse of “literally” is one thing, but the fact that,
“literally” has come to mean, “literally [there are]” bugs me a hell of a lot
more.

~~~
dahart
> the fact that, “literally” has come to mean, “literally [there are]” bugs me
> a hell of a lot more.

I think you’re jumping to an incorrect conclusion. There are numerous
sentences in the article (and others from NOAA) with no verb, it has nothing
to do with the word literally. This isn’t a piece of literary writing, it’s
abbreviated language intended for a very narrow field of professional readers.
There are many examples of other professional communication that similarly do
not follow normal conventions for casual writing nor conversation. Look up
airline or boat pilot transcripts, or medical science papers, or HAM radio
users... a huge number of niche fields that have their own sub-languages.

