Yesterday was a noteworthy day, as we received a very impressive nighttime lightning display. During the day, instability reached a maximum of around 1500 J/kg of CAPE, and an LI of around -6C. Shortly before 4pm, a thunderstorm fired up a few miles to the east of Ithaca, producing a few lightning strikes and rumbles of thunder.
The real show was to begin after sunset. I had engaged my friend in a debate about affirmative action, and I offered to show her the CNN program "Black in America", which happened to be on TV at the time. Being that my lightning detector is ALWAYS on, I noticed a few flashes outside the window out of the corner of my eye, and I jumped off the couch and did a radar check on the computer a few feet away. To my surprise, there were thunderstorms galore to the north of us, and so my friend and I went out into the middle of Jessup field to watch the lightning, while continuing our debate on affirmative action (how nerdy, I know). The lightning was quite frequent, with flashes coming every couple of seconds. Due to the abundance of low-cloud debris between us and the thunderstorms, the flashes seemed to light up a huge portion of the night sky, due to the reflective nature of those clouds.
Dean joined us a long while afterwards, apparently oblivious to the whereabouts of his two friends who mysteriously disappeared. As the storms got more the 40 miles away, we began to notice that we could see the flashes from directly above us, being reflected off of the low clouds between us and the storms. Given my lack of personal experience with thunderstorms, I had never noticed this phenomenon before, and it was really awesome!
There was a 2-inch hail report in the town of Waterville, NY...very impressive!
-Leon
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aurora and the lightning lion fill you in on the latest happenings
Would you like this blog to continue in the fall?
welcome
This is a pet project of two senior meteorology majors at Cornell that should serve our own interests and possibly yours as well. The summer of '08 featured reporting on local thunderstorm activity, and with the fall approaching, we will refocus on other sorts of interesting weather events.
archived entries
tally breakdown
total: 32
vicinity storms: 12
4/23 ~7:00pm
5/26 ~5:45pm
5/31 ~4:00am
6/10 ~12:20pm
6/16 ~1:30pm
6/23 ~3:40am
7/16 ~8:45pm
7/26 ~3:50pm
8/8 ~12:00am
8/18 ~1:45pm
8/18 ~6:40pm
8/24 ~10:45pm
direct hits: 20
4/26 ~6:00pm
5/31 ~2:00pm
6/8 ~1:30pm
6/10 ~6:15pm
6/16 ~1:30am
6/16 ~3:30pm
6/20 ~5:20pm
6/20 ~5:35pm
6/20 ~6:05pm
6/22 ~2:00am
6/23 ~8:00pm
7/13 ~3:20pm
7/17 ~11:15am
7/20 ~4:55pm
7/20 ~5:35pm
7/26 ~9:30pm
8/2 ~7:30pm
8/10 ~3:00am
8/10 ~8:30pm
8/25 ~1:15am
vicinity storms: 12
4/23 ~7:00pm
5/26 ~5:45pm
5/31 ~4:00am
6/10 ~12:20pm
6/16 ~1:30pm
6/23 ~3:40am
7/16 ~8:45pm
7/26 ~3:50pm
8/8 ~12:00am
8/18 ~1:45pm
8/18 ~6:40pm
8/24 ~10:45pm
direct hits: 20
4/26 ~6:00pm
5/31 ~2:00pm
6/8 ~1:30pm
6/10 ~6:15pm
6/16 ~1:30am
6/16 ~3:30pm
6/20 ~5:20pm
6/20 ~5:35pm
6/20 ~6:05pm
6/22 ~2:00am
6/23 ~8:00pm
7/13 ~3:20pm
7/17 ~11:15am
7/20 ~4:55pm
7/20 ~5:35pm
7/26 ~9:30pm
8/2 ~7:30pm
8/10 ~3:00am
8/10 ~8:30pm
8/25 ~1:15am
2 comments:
Did Shianne attempt to take any pictures? If so, did they suck?
She attempted to take pictures of a cauliflower tower and a backside anvil at some point just before sunset. I believe she deleted most, if not all of them however, so if they did suck...nobody knows it but her.
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