Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Thunderstruck in Lafayette as the Thunderheads Return



I took these photos at 9:25 last Saturday evening (June 21, 2008). They were taken across St. Rd. 16 from North White High School in Monon. I was facing east with the sun behind me. I zoomed in on the one picture to get that fiery red center.

Hope you can use them. If not, just enjoy them. We enjoy all the pictures that you show on the weather.

Nancy Harvey
Monon, IN

Thank you Nancy. I am lucky to have such avid weather enthusiasts and those pictures are absolutely beautiful examples of nature's majesty. You are looking at 45,000 foot thunderheads or cumulonimbus clouds. The warm, bouyant rising air parcels keep rising until they reach equilibrium with the atmosphere. This usually happens near the top of the troposphere where temperatures level off. This is where the warm parcels are no longer warmer than their environment. This causes the cloud to form this beautiful anvil-shape as the air is forced to spread outward instead of upward.






The old AC/DC song "thunderstruck" is playing in my head this early morning as I track storms across Illinois. Our weekend weatherman Brian Wolfe is in here tracking storms as well. He is doing a great job learning our computer systems, but does need work on his singing this song above. :) You can say the "thunder" chant in the song above sums up the weather story of the day quite well. This line of thunderstorms could produce a brief gusty thunderstorm this morning. The first line will not be too strong to start early today in our viewing area but later today we will have to watch out for a few stronger thunderstorms. We are in a slight risk of severe weather today. The main threats will be large hail and damaging wind.


Tristan Scheffer. Taken by Tristan Scheffer. Winamac, IN June 22, 2008 at 13:24.

You can see some of the hail that pelted Winamac over the weekend. It was one of at least a dozen hail reports. Unfortunately there was some damage to corn crops near Remington. A good mile of corn was flattened like a pancake. We have had an amazing 56 damaging storm reports in our viewing area since May 30th. We are averaging just over two reports per day over the past three and a half weeks. It comes out to 25 wind reports, 24 hail reports, and 7 tornadoes. This begs the question about if we will also have to worry about flooding. After all we had the worst flooding since 1913 just south of Indianapolis. The good news is I do not see a repeat of this. The main jet stream which helped a front stall with close to 10 inches of rain in some areas near Franklin is well north of the area. This does not mean we could have a few areas with over an inch of rain the next few days. But I do not see another flood event. The bad news is that more flooding is possible for areas of Wisconsin, northern Illinois, and Iowa closer to the battle zone closer to the jet stream. Our weather team will keep you updated on those "thunderheads". Make it a great day. Now back to Live Doppler 18.

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

What time do you think the first storms will hit this morning? My children have indoor swimming lessons from 9-10am.

Anonymous said...

At 8 am I had .16 in the rain gage and the clouds were getting darker. As I got to work in Rensselaer the rain was getting harder and the drops bigger. Lightning was increasing. Looks like the rain will heavier as the morning goes on. At one point there was rotation in Illinois headed north east but at this time it seems to have fallen apart. William in Remington.

Anonymous said...

right now in Rensselaer the rain has stopped downtown. Still looks like we will get more soon.
william in Remington

Anonymous said...

Ok right now here in lafayette clouds are at 450 to 500FT with some hail we are now getting heavy rains thunder and lightning will keep you posted.

Justin in Lafayette.

Anonymous said...

We are getting small hail near kossuth street

Anonymous said...

Street lights are on. the lightning is horriable!very hard rain with pea size hail....lafayette

Anonymous said...

Looks like this system is moveing out so things should start to calm down.

Justin in Lafayette.

Anonymous said...

Looks like the storm cell that gave us are loud thunder and hail is moveing towards cass, white, and carrol, co, so if you live there be ready.

Justin in Lafayette.

Anonymous said...

Wow! That cell was no fun. Extremely heavy rain (.27 in.), pea-sized hail and buckets of rain here in Brookfield Heights subdivision just east of Meijer. I'd like to think we won't see worse than that for the rest of the day but I'm not feeling very optimistic.

Dogmom Cheryl

Anonymous said...

The rain was coming from the NW, with what looked like a wall cloud in the SW moving E. No warnings were issued for this storm???

Anonymous said...

The lack of a warning surprised me, too, as it was extremely gusty in addition to the lightning and hail. Today is trash day and as soon as the cell moves a bit farther off I'm going to have to go out and get my trash cans upright again and collect what spilled. Also lost a couple small branches from the birch tree out front. :-(

Dogmom Cheryl

Anonymous said...

Traffic lights are out all around Laf. area. A mess. Lots of water in 52! I think storms could get worse as the day goes on

Anonymous said...

The doppler is worthless! When you need it the most it freezes, what's the point of even having it? It is still showing a few minutes before nine. I'll stick with weather.com's neat radar se-up.

Anonymous said...

And here in my part of Remington I just dumped the gauge (had to wait unti NO thunder was heard) and found .98!! No hail here that I saw.

Remember bloggers to warrant a severe t-storm warning you must have winds of 58 mph or greater, and hail of ?? size. We can have strongs storms that are not considered "severe" by NWS even though WE think it is pretty major :--)

More chances later today for more strong storms. Hang in there!

Mary Anne in Remington

Anonymous said...

Cloud temp for next system so far is around -60 to -65* the last system we had cloud temp was near
-70 to -75*.
Dew points still moveing up which as we all know happens in storms.
Some good news I have not seen any storms reports with ether the system that went through us or the system comeing.

All stay safe!!!

Justin in Lafayette.

Anonymous said...

The current temp in Lafayette is 66 the sun is coming out and the high temp is to reach 85. Yes the dew points are on the rise! I see more storms in the west some look to be strong!

Anonymous said...

Looks like our chances of severe weather later today are good. But I want to warn everyone keep an eye out for Friday, as there looks to be a significant weather event shaping up. We could very well be in a moderate risk for severe storms on Friday with all modes of severe weather possible...lines with damaging winds, as well multicells and supercells with hail and tornadoes possible, perhaps a medium tornado outbreak in the OH valley to western Great Lakes area.

Anonymous said...

Mary Anne, I agree with you but I also think extreme cloud to ground lightning should warrant severe t-storm warnings. Lightning is the most dangerous threat with storms, so to me it doesn't make sense that they don't include it as a criteria for warnings.

For instance, that storm this morning and another non-warned storm that woke me up in northern IN a few weeks back both had extreme cloud to ground, very dangerous lightning. No warnings. The last t-storm warning we had here a week or two ago with the wind damage around town, to me I thought that storm was pretty lame.

Anonymous said...

looking at this next system it dose not look to be to bad clouds are at 250 to 350FT this can still change so dont let your guard down.

Still could see moderate to heavy rain with this system. As well as the cloud temp is still at -60* to -65*.

Still no reports with this system as well.

Justin in Lafayette.

Anonymous said...

New MSD out for our area...weather watch probable this afternoon with main threat being isolated wind damage and hail, as well as isolated tornado(s).

Anonymous said...

A severe thunderstorm warning is issued when trained Skywarn spotters or a Doppler capable weather radar indicate a strong thunderstorm is producing dangerously large hail or high winds, capable of causing significant damage. It does not account for lightning or flooding. A warning must not be confused with a severe thunderstorm watch.

In the U.S., the National Weather Service defines a severe thunderstorm as having large hail being at least ¾ inch (19 mm) in diameter, high winds as being 58 miles per hour (93 km/h) or greater, producing tornadoes, or any combination of the three.

Thats the NWS for you!

Teri in Lafayette

Anonymous said...

With this system that was heading are way it has weaken a lot right now I dont see us getting anything out of this one now for later we still have to watch to see how it plays out.

Justin in Lafayette.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous is right about storms on Friday. I have read the same information. Hope all will be clear for the weekend, but we have to get through Friday first.

Teri in Lafayette

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the weather update Mike. Keep us informed for Friday also, many people will be outdoors for the American Cancer Society relay Friday night at Jeff, we want all to be safe from 5-9pm.

Anonymous said...

Well looks like we got the clear for now still going to watch tonight through I think are next best chance to see any more strong storms is going to be between late friday night into saturday. I'll talk to you later time to go get some food :).

Justin in Lafayette.

Anonymous said...

Yeah it got really dark here earlier this morning but mostly rain and lightning.

I wished that I would have planned it better so I could have taken some pics of the bolts...there was quite a bit of it in a field down the way.

By the way, its about time you got a hair cut Mike! :)

Brow in Monticello