PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Thunderstorms rolled through parts of the West Valley early this morning, and the lightning caused two fires in Avondale.
One fire lit up the pre-dawn sky when a palm tree caught on fire, while the other was a home that burned. The storms were not limited to the Valley. In Flagstaff, two people were struck by lightning on Humphreys Peak.
A lot of the lightning action in the Valley moved between 4 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. Doppler radar estimated 46 lightning strikes around this time from the west Valley into the surrounding areas to the southwest.
Notice the big cluster of bolts over Avondale, just west of Phoenix.
Morning Lightning Strikes(3TV/CBS 5)
Later in the morning, there were even more strikes across parts of southern, western, and northern Arizona including Flagstaff.
Lighting in Arizona this morning(3TV/CBS 5)
Northern Arizona lightning(3TV/CBS 5)
What caused all of the thunderstorms? A cutoff low spinning off the coast of California was the main ingredient. A cutoff low is an area of low pressure in the upper levels of the atmosphere that is detached from the main branch of the jet stream.
Think of it as a bicycle wheel. On the right side of the bicycle wheel, a spoke of energy pulled moisture from Arizona, sparking the showers and thunderstorms.
Cutoff low(3TV/CBS 5)
The cutoff low will move through northern Arizona overnight into Thursday. Because we will be on the drier side of the cutoff low, no additional rain is expected in the Valley.
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