Summer thunderstorms in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, and Iran

There have been some very active summer afternoon thunderstorms around the mountains of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, and Iran. I guess the below IR satellite and lightning images say something. While thunderstorms are normal in Yemen at this time of the year, I’m really surprised how widespread (and more to the west than normal) the thunderstorms were in Iran. Also look at Madina, Saudi Arabia meteogram which shows thunderstorms erupting at around 1300 UTC on Aug 23rd and temperature dropping from 44c to 31. It must have been a strong storm.