Greg, I live in Tortolita...if you know where that is. Actually, we're not a separate little town north of Tucson....we lost our long well-fought fight with the city within the past couple of years to become one. But if you don't....Tortolita is due north of Tangerine Rd. ....at the foot of the Tortolita mtns. My house is nestled right up against the Tortolitas...and if you took La Cholla Rd. straight north to where it dead ends agains the mtns. there...(although it doesn't cut all the way through..but you get the idea) that's where my pad is.
I've got a 2-story Santa Fe home. The entire 2nd. story is the master bedroom..and when you walk outside of the bedroom to our south...it's all decked for 180 degrees around. So I've got killer viewing to the due east (the Catalina mtns.) and due west (Marana / Tucson mtns.), and of course we can see all the way south past metro Tucson down to about Sahuarita on a clear day. It's a killer place to watch storms...especially lightning.
Where we were seeing this St. Elmo's / incredible glowing display appeared to be south of Tucson. We were looking due south from the 2nd. floor. CG's were just sticking the ground...and staying there for a long time too. We saw several strikes light up as if something caught fire as well, in addition to the St. Elmos. My guess it was around either the Indian res. where San Xavier mission is....or farther south.
Dude....it was an incredible show. I looked for anything about the glowing in the paper the next day (the Star..I didn't check the Citizen) but found nothing. Other people that worked with my wife did....so it definitely wasn't some illusion I was seeing.
Who knows.....if we ever get a real monsoon again....we might see it again too.