Nailed yet again!!!

Yes, ANOTHER direct hit!!! An upper trough approaching from our west provided the lift necessary to generate thunderstorms in an environment of around 1000 j/kg of CAPE and lifted indices at around -4C. There was abundant daytime heating, with surface temperatures rising into the upper 70s and dewpoints in the upper 50s. The shear wasn't too impressive, from a directional standpoint as well as speed, but nevertheless we ended up getting arguably our best storm this summer so far.

A storm initially passed about 8-9 miles to our south and southeast as Dean and I were eating at Appel. This storm was responsible for a few rumbles of thunder that we heard. The skies off to our west looked rather dark and ominous as well, and we saw a couple lightning strikes, so we knew what to expect. Right as we got back to our house, I observed a rapidly developing storm about 4 miles south of us. It was characterized by a very dark, turbulent-looking base that looked somewhat disc-shaped. This storm quickly evolved into a beast that Dean took an excellent panorama of:


Dean stayed outside under the bus shelter, while I oscillated between going inside the house and standing out on the porch. The aforementioned cell passed a few miles east of our location, while another cell blew up southwest of Ithaca and passed just south of us. Our location did experience some heavy rain, although we missed the core of the storms. However, the lightning show was fantastic, with quite a few close CG strikes and deafening rumbles of thunder. I caught this nice CG strike from my porch: click for clip ~1.9 MB


Looking ahead over the next week, it looks like we'll have numerous opportunities to build upon what has been a phenomenal summer so far!

-Leon