A night to remember:Thunderstorm shatters records (lightning strikes Golden Gate & Bay Bridge)- pics

Eight bolts of lightning hit the Bay Bridge during a powerful lightning storm in San Francisco on Thursday, April 12, 2012. A record number of lightning bolts struck the Bay Area during the storm.
Photo: Phil McGrew


Lightning strikes the Golden Gate Bridge on Thursday, April 12, 2012. A record number of lightning bolts struck the Bay Area.
Photo: Chris Blain / Courtesy


A lightning bolt strikes over downtown Oakland on April 12, 2012. From Damon Tighe: "Great storm over Oakland. Most of the bolts were at my back, but I was lucky to get one striking right where I was hoping it would: over downtown!"
Photo: Damon Tighe / Courtesy photo


A night to remember: Thunderstorm shatters records
Will Kane
Friday, April 13, 2012

(04-13) 17:32 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- The thunderstorm that blew through the Bay Area Thursday night was one for the books - it shattered rainfall records in four cities and produced more lightning strikes than any storm in years.

All that rain pushed local precipitation totals closer to seasonal averages, percentage-wise, than they've been since a bone-dry December. It was accompanied by 750 lightning strikes across the Bay Area between 8 p.m. and midnight, said Chris Stumpf, a National Weather Service forecaster.

"That's quite a bit more than we've almost ever had, at least in recent memory," he said. "It's nice to mix things up."

Bolts hit the Transamerica Pyramid, towers on the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge, the giant container cranes at the Port of Oakland and an airplane that had just taken off from San Francisco International Airport for London. The plane turned back without incident.


more and more pics at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/04/13/BALB1O304I.DTL#ixzz1rypYxQrM