{"id":325119,"date":"2025-10-23T00:17:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T00:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/325119\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T00:17:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T00:17:14","slug":"whats-the-storm-setup-behind-lightning-caused-fires-across-metro-phoenix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/325119\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s the storm setup behind lightning-caused fires across metro Phoenix"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\"><b>PHOENIX (AZFamily)<\/b> \u2014 Thunderstorms rolled through parts of the West Valley early this morning, and the lightning caused two fires in Avondale. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">One fire lit up the pre-dawn sky <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/video\/2025\/10\/22\/lightning-sparks-palm-tree-fire-avondale\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">when a palm tree caught on fire<\/a>, while the other was a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/video\/2025\/10\/22\/lightning-causes-house-fire-avondale\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">home that burned<\/a>. The storms were not limited to the Valley. In Flagstaff, two <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/2025\/10\/22\/least-1-struck-by-lightning-humphreys-peak-flagstaff\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">people were struck by lightning <\/a>on Humphreys Peak.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">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. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Notice the big cluster of bolts over Avondale, just west of Phoenix.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"Morning Lightning Strikes\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/VSY6IRNNF5D6PAGHP7IKTWXJEM.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" \/>Morning Lightning Strikes(3TV\/CBS 5)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Later in the morning, there were even more strikes across parts of southern, western, and northern Arizona including Flagstaff. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"Lighting in Arizona this morning\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/KPHTCQPEH5GVXIJFJJQL54RLNE.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" \/>Lighting in Arizona this morning(3TV\/CBS 5)<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"Northern Arizona lightning\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ZTMZ4S4DM5DAFGKUC5ANWMXIHI.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" \/>Northern Arizona lightning(3TV\/CBS 5)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">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. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">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.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"Cutoff low\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/GXYSRD7M3FHBPEIN3Z74WI57SU.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" \/>Cutoff low(3TV\/CBS 5)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/page\/send-us-your-feedback\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Please click here to report it<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/community\/user-content\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">it to us here<\/a> with a brief description.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 KTVK\/KPHO. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX (AZFamily) \u2014 Thunderstorms rolled through parts of the West Valley early this morning, and the lightning caused&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":325120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,7161,1587,7182,15048,6995,112436,1589,7183,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-325119","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-arizona-weather","11":"tag-az","12":"tag-azfamily","13":"tag-first-alert-weather","14":"tag-lightning","15":"tag-lightning-storms","16":"tag-phoenix","17":"tag-phoenix-news","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115420610515092525","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}