NWS reports 600 cloud to ground strikes between 6-7 am. Small fire started in Highlands, but rain helped keep it small. Below is the lightning radar.
Oops … Should have had my coffee first, or gotten the sleep out of my eyes. The rain RATE was 2.54″/hour. I only received .06″ in that cloud burst. My bad! At 5:30 am, I received 2 and 1/2″ of rain in mere minutes. Wow!
I woke around 1:30 am to an amazing light show to my south. The sky is still being lit up every 30 secs or so, now at 2 am. It is far enough away that I can not hear the thunder I can only imagine is crackling through the atmosphere. My SLO weather caster tweets that there has been lightning and rain in SLO Co for the last hour. 
I checked wildCAD to see it hasn’t been updated since last night around 5 pm, but that there were several wildfire starts to the south, including a single tree lightning strike. I can only hope these are accompanied by rain. My cousin’s son said it rained the entire time he drove from Hesperian to Pismo yesterday, per a conversation I had with my aunt last night. We have no rain here, but at least the wild winds I had all day yesterday have died. It is quiet, for now.
7/19/15 0300 hours go to http://www.lightningmaps.org/realtime?lang=en
SLO Coast is getting hit hard Now
a smashing show in Los Osos at 1:00 AM for an hour or so with a 4 minute heavy downpour. Just enough for people to say “what the hell was that?”
One of my gauges shows 1.3″. That lightning was right over us at times–no pause between the flash and the loud thunder clap. Little sleep after 0200. One dog barked at every loud bang Cal in Adelaida, S of Lake Nacimiento.
Glad you got some rain, lots of dry lightning up here, two small spots at Point Lobos and Hwy One at Carpenter so far, sounds like more on the way. No rain here as yet.
Spectacular display by Mother nature here at the foot of the Carmel Valley at Rio Road. Numerous cells moving through with moderate rain and abundant thunder and lightning. I caught the sunrise in Pacific Grove and noted a fire engine on the scene of a lightning caused transformer fire at the intersection of Highway 1 and Carpenter. They were spraying down the small spot at the foot of the pole in a decent rain. Carmel Valley is exiting a near epic bombardment of lightning and thunder.
Fire reported in the Ventana Wilderness South Fork of the Little Sur River about 3 miles inland. Cal Fire and USFS responding.
Like Mike Morales described, and CV’s middle in thunderous grip, we got your noise though the count between light and sound was very long and I can’t remember the formula around one-Mississippi two-Mississippi re miles. Incredible long rolling smashing roaring going on for hours, quieter now but my cat curled up inside on the bed, back to the window, and having nothing to do with the nonsense outside, airborne rock and roll. Still heard thunder around 8:30 AM. Enormous lot of rain, real downpour also for hours, stopped around 9 AM. Land sea and sky smelling divine. Hurrah!