Bay Area residents near the water saw something familiar when the sun rose Wednesday morning — a fairly heavy level of coastal fog that was generating a cool breeze moving in from the ocean.
“We’re kind of back to normal,” National Weather Service meteorologist Brayden Murdock said. “We’re gonna have a nice cool-off with plenty of cloud cover and stratus clouds. There’s a lot of on-shore flow, and this is what’s gonna settle in for at least a few days.”
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The return of the fog bank also signaled the end of a muggy, volatile stretch of weather that brought thunder and lightning throughout the state and in the region. The weather service recorded at least a half-dozen air-to-ground lightning strikes Tuesday, including five near San Jose Mineta International Airport.
By Tuesday night, most of that lightning in the Bay Area had moved out, Murdock said. He added that the region didn’t record any air-to-ground strikes, nor any reports of cloud-to-cloud flashes.
Such was not the case elsewhere. In the Sacramento Valley, the weather service recorded between 25 and 30 lightning strikes. A flurry of lightning strikes also were recorded in Fresno County and near Reno.
Cal Fire investigators said they will try to determine whether the lightning strikes in the state on Monday and Tuesday contributed to or helped to start some of the wildfires that were burning early Wednesday.
The most recent of those was the Fresno June Lightning Complex Fire, which began Tuesday morning about 9:05 a.m. It had burned 7,002 acres by 7 a.m. Wednesday and was 15% contained. The fires are burning east of Sanger. Evacuation orders for some areas near the fire were in effect.
The fire was renamed Wednesday. Those fires originally were dubbed individually as the Hog, Flash and Bolt fires.
Crews also were gaining on some of the other big fires in the state.
Crews have gained 98% containment on the Aero Fire in Calaveras County, which as burned 5,285 acres, according to Cal Fire. And the Post Fire in Los Angeles and Ventura counties was 90% contained. It has burned 15,563 acres (24 square miles).
Murdock said the cooler weather pattern likely will mean temperatures that are 6-8 degrees cooler than they reached on Tuesday. Livermore in Alameda County was the region’s hot spot, reaching 100 degrees. Morgan Hill reached 94 degrees and Concord was at 93.
None of those cities were expected to surpass 85 degrees on Wednesday.
