Back in Ithaca

Yes folks, we are back in Ithaca, NY after a long 3-week absence. I took an overnight flight Saturday night across the country from LA to Philly, and what a flight it was! We flew south of a rather large thunderstorm cluster, or a mesoscale convective system (MCS), that was located over portions of Nebraska and Iowa. Being such a weather geek, I always book a window seat, and this time I was tremendously fortunate to have been on the left side of the plane. The storms were in a line that spanned several hundred miles west to east, so there was continuous lightning throughout my field of vision for around an hour or more. Growing up in California, I've never really had the opportunity to witness lightning shows of such intensity, so it was easily the best lightning I've seen in my entire life.

The best part of the show was that I witnessed a sprite. It occurred very quickly, literally in a blink of an eye, above the thunderstorms. It appeared to be whitish in color, although this probably was more due to how quickly it appeared. I wasn't absolutely certain at first, but after the hour of observing lightning, I never had that visual phenomenon appear again, so I am now quite certain that it was indeed a sprite. Yep, my first sprite ever!!!



Sunday, June 8th...we had several thunderstorms brush by the Ithaca area. With temperatures rising into the mid 80's and dewpoints in the low 70's, the atmosphere was well juiced-up, although the vertical wind shear was lacking. Luckily none of these thunderstorms made a direct hit on me when I was walking the 3.5 miles from the airport to my house (hey, I ain't gonna be ripped off by no $15+ taxi ride).

-Leon