July 14, 2014

Missing a Lightning Bullet

Last night the advertised thunderstorms/convection moved northward, but fortunately there wasn't much lightning on the eastern slopes of the Cascades.  There are several lightning detection networks.   Here is the 24h total from one of them (lightningmaps.org):



Lots of lightning over northern Oregon, some strikes near the Olympics, and several in the Okanogan of  NE Washington.   A few lightning strikes did hit around Puget Sound, here are the strikes for the hour ending 9:30 PM last night:

But the best thing last night was the sunset, with the rain band coming through, but illuminated by the setting sun.  Amazing colors looking west and rainbows looking east!

Here is a stunning picture sent to me by Michael de Haan of virga falling from the convection during sunset.  Amazing.

 A lot of the precipitation evaporated as it fell from the clouds (as illustrated in the picture above0.   Thus, the precipitation totals yesterday were unimpressive, except for respectable amounts (.1 or more) over the Olympics and Cascades (see figure with 24 precip. ending 10:17 AM Monday).








4 comments:

  1. The sunset last night was unreal. One of the best I've ever seen in all my years living here.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Two lightning strikes in Vancouver, WA. One knocked out power to a few homes, one started a fire.

    ReplyDelete
  3. We had thunder in Federal Way. I don't see that on your map, but I don't know where the lightning was, or if it hit the ground.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Strange times in Portland, many bolts and rumbles but no typical deep dark cell as a source. Definitely not the usual tstorm dynamics, but exciting nonetheless!

    ReplyDelete

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