Continuous Lightning In 4 AM Storm To North

Up early working on a review this morning (Saturday, August 22nd) and I went outside briefly and saw that there was a storm north of the Catalinas flashing continuously. Haven't seen one of these pre-sunrise storms in quite awhile. This one appears locked-in on the mountains south of San Carlos. It is undoubtedly producing very heavy rains up there.

Radar composite above is from 4:05 am MST and CG flash densities below are for 2-hours ending at 4:30 am (from Vaisala and Weather.Graphics).  Flash densities are very impressive for this nearly stationary storm.

IR satellite image below is from 3:30 am and shows how very isolated this single storm is. Closest activity is way off southwest of El Paso where there is an impressive storm/small MCS in northern Mexico. The storm south of San Carlos is obviously very nasty and very unusual.