What an amazing storm we had last night!

I went to sleep with the windows open since it was so hot out, but couldn't get into deep sleep. Around 1am in the morning I started hearing the thunderstorms and the wind picking up. So I just got up and spent a half hour watching the storm flow by.

The thunder looked like it wasn't touching the ground, but traveling through the clouds. At the height of the storm I was seeing flashes every minute and then the rumbling. If you use the one mile per second rule the rumblings would follow the flashes about 6-10 seconds.

Then the wind picked up to speeds rarely seen in Seattle. We have some huge trees in the area and I seriously thought they were going to come down. The wind picked up pretty instantaneously and I heard two nearby crashes. Well, when I took my girlfriend to the airport this morning I found out the cause of the crashes. A couple huge branches had fallen on some parked cars and were completely covered! I took pictures but need to scan them in. Sorry I can't show you right now.

The News said the Cascades would be getting thunderstorms last night, but I didn't know the storm system was going to pass right over our heads. It was an interesting and sleepless night... thank goodness it is Friday and Starbucks is open at 5:30am!

 

Me and jill woke up to that craziness too....then i drive to work and it is bone dry here in tukwila!

 

SWWNBD and I sat out on the deck and watched it for 45 min last night about 11:00. It was quite a show. We did see a few coming from the ground but most were between clouds. It appeared the storm was practically stationary but was moving south very sloooowly.

Erik

 

You are SO right Anaconda it WAS AMAZING!

I went out n tried REALLY hard to get a pic of the lightning and lemme tell ya its NOT easy to catch one!

I DID actually get one after a gazzzilion tries! Luckily I still had this pop up tent thingie on my back patio that my neighbor put up for the Graduation party case it rained. So I was able to set up the tripod and not have the camera get wet! Here is the only one that sort of came out. Not great but if you can imagine that the sky was pitch black as you can see in the second pic.

The BRIGHTNESS was incredible like daylight allmost!

 

Erik that MGA you had is SOOOOOOOOOOOOO I those! I had an MGB not quite as but a fun car (till it caught on fire ) The S reminds me of it sometimes (not the catching on fire part the roadster part)

 

We were watching a movie last night but were completely distracted by the lightning. It was great - it seemed about 1/3 of the bolts travelled sideways

At first I thought it might be someone with fireworks because it lit up the clouds and I couldn't see any bolts. Soon after that it became obvious that this was a big lightning storm.

 

Yeah it was awesome, took us awhile to figure out what it was.

 

That is a pretty spiffy picture Gina.

The storm woke up each of my co-workers as well. And the normally crabby mail lady is extra crabby due to the storm, too! Seems everyone will be tired by the afternoon and only the party hardcore will be out late tonight.

 

I was just falling asleep when it hit. I lay there listening to hear if it was going to start raining before I got up and closed the windows. Then I fell back into bed and was out in minutes.

I miss thunderstorms...they're so relaxing!

 

Yeah.... My real passion is astronomy and astrophotography. Since it was clear (and supposed to remain so), and there's no moon, I was setting up my scope, camera and assorted ancillary gear. I was watching the sky to the northeast, which was getting darker as night fell. Then the sky over the Cascades was repeatedly lit up with lightning, and it eventually became clear the it was headed my way. I covered everything up well, cursed the weather, and went it. Where I live, east of Redmond on the edge of the Snoqualmie Valley, we had a rip-snorter of a storm, with constant thunder and lightning, and fairly heavy rain.

I guess I'll try again tonight with the scope!