Another nondescript setup produces a lightning barrage of rare intensity near home on Thursday morning. Models had not portrayed this setup favorably for anything worth chasing here, and after a long night at work, I was not planning on staying awake for it. Before going to bed, I checked radar to see echoes right outside much stronger than models had suggested earlier. So, I went out to take a look.
These were initially slow to produce lightning, but after sunrise, the flash rates ramped up rapidly. I moved east to Germantown to find myself in the middle of one of the more intense barrages of cloud-to-ground lightning I've experienced. It was enough that I moved locations to shoot under high-tension power lines to protect my car! It's rare that I feel the risk of a strike is that high to take that action. I captured a few nice 6,002 FPS high speed shots here. The dashcams also captured several close bolts. This Youtube edit has the best captures:
Storms were expected to develop on a "back door" cold front (one coming in from the northeast) this evening. However, the intensity and longevity of the morning rounds of storms (see the previous log entry) left us with very little instability for the evening round. The storms weakened as they arrived in the eastern St. Louis metro area, producing this nice "whale's mouth" formation on the outflow. I saw a couple of flashes of lightning, but not enough to try shooting.
