On Tuesday, February 2, 2016 at 7:51:28 PM UTC-5, wrote:
Dave Platt wrote: "High-pressure sodium lights exhibit a "cycling" on-and-off behavior when
they reach end of life. However, when I've seen this it's been a
fairly slow cycle, and didn't exhibit the sort of bright strobe-like
flash you describe. "

There's a street light across from our house that cycles on
and off over a period of 30-40 sec., but does it on random
nights(!). We might see it do it repeatedly for one night,
then do it again a week or a month later, no pattern.

Yeah, that sounds like normal failure mode. I've not seen one flash and stay lit though.