There was a sizable thunderstorm today east of the Cascades, with an impressive thunderstorm tornado producing large amounts of lightning.
Lightning flashed for ten minutes ending at 5:20 p.m. tonight was amazing (see below, including clouds shown), with lightning orbiting a vortex centered near Omak, WA. Just wow…
Satellite images visible a few hours earlier showed whirlpools and accompanying thunderstorms (each creating a cloud).
These thunderstorms produce more than light, as illustrated by the total rainfall for today (Tuesday) … see below. Some locations are more than half an inch…. a lot with a tenth of an inch or so.
The source of this dramatic cloud and lightning vortex is a high-level low. Below is a 500 hPa elevation map (as pressure at 18,000 ft) around 5pm (wind is also shown). The low is centered near the WA/Canada border, northwest of Spokane.
This low is not going anywhere quickly. Here is the forecast for Wednesday 5pm. A small shift to the southeast.
So you can expect the return of the thunderbolts on Wednesday! To illustrate, below are the clouds predicted from the very high resolution UW WRF model at 5 p.m. Wednesday.
Mama Mia! Lots of thunderstorms over the eastern part of Washington State!
Finally, tonight, I was taking my dog for a long run around Magnuson Park north of Seattle and I saw a thunderstorm towering over the eastern slopes of the Cascades – some as high as 35,000 feet.
