One of the greatest Northwest lightning outbreaks in recent memory occurred today, with well over 5000 lightning strokes over the region.
Below are the strokes over the past 24 h: very impressive.
There were three major thunderstorm paths...one down the lowlands of western Washington, one along the coast, and a broad band in eastern Oregon and Washington.
Importantly, there were very few lightning strikes on the eastern side of the Cascades, which greatly reduced the chances of forecast fires there.
The massive lightning activity over northeast Oregon did start fires.
Normally, the Pacific Northwest is the poor stepchild of lightning activity in the U.S. But look at the national lightning activity for the past 48 hr below. For once, we were in the league of Florida or Texas!
The radar image this morning was enough to promote goosebumps for the meteorologically inclined:
And today's precipitation totals were quite significant, with several locations receiving over a half-inch (see today's totals below).
During the morning, several folks told me they saw funnel clouds, based on pictures like this:
I saw such clouds myself... which result from aircraft passing through a low cloud deck. NOT a tornado.
Let me end with a truly remarkable image.
Low clouds were left in the wake of the thunderstorms over western Washington, but Mount Rainier extended above the clouds. Eastern Washington is now experiencing plumes of smoke from fires ignited by the lightning over northeast Oregon. The green areas show lightning strikes.
Hiked Granite Mountain today, near Snoqualmie Pass. Not a drop of rain or any sign of lightning. Glacier Peak, Mount Stuart and many other mountains were in full view from the top, and lots of sunshine.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good hike. The first time I hiked it was an early summer day that had clouds and drizzle that eventually burned off, but not until the hike was over.
DeleteThe map doesn't show it, but there was lightning in the Bellingham area too. The Time Series at the Bellingham Airport last night reported thunder at 9:08 pm. I was on the campus of Western Washington University and saw a few flashes of lightning about that time. Plus one in-cloud bolt, the first lightning bolt I've seen around here in a long time.
ReplyDeleteI was a meteorologist for the USAF years ago in Louisiana. While the storms yesterday will never be confused with the huge ones we got there, yesterday was a lot of fun.
ReplyDeleteI was at work when these storms went off in the Kent area (Washington 181/208th St) and the lights int he office blinked once but a coworker showed the radar in Tacoma and lots of lightning here. When I got home, obviously, no power loss as all my clocks that rely on AC power were not reset/flashing.
ReplyDeleteSo missed watching the commotion, sad to say.I did, however, caught the one that went through the area in early Sept of 2019, but was in the evening so got to witness that one, along with torrential rains. That one was fun, even if I lost power for a couple of hours...
Are the katabatibc winds influencing this Sonoran moisture? Its wild at the south pole right now
ReplyDeletelatest NWS long-term outlook shows warmer (maybe quite a bit so) than average and much less precipitation than usual over the next three months. El Nino may well be very intense
ReplyDeleteNot much of this happened in lovely S. Everett...just a few decent lightning bolts, some muffled thunder...and not much rain...just enough to bring that which I am allergic to, right down to ground level!...Sneezing was the order of the evening for me!
ReplyDelete