at 12:00 AM by Pierce Larkin

WxRecap: Holy Moly Lightning

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I honestly can say to you for a fact that I have experienced or driven through thunderstorms as lightning intense as those that I experienced tonight. I spent the entire day at the National Weather Service in Louisville, and I knew these storms were producing lightning. However, I didn’t know they were producing that much lightning.

Lightning over the past several hours. h/t www.lightningmaps.org
Lightning over the past several hours. h/t www.lightningmaps.org

These storms were incredibly efficient at producing lightning across the region, in addition to severe thunderstorms. I was amazed, and still am amazed at the amount of lightning these thunderstorms produced. I mean…I just can’t really describe what it is like to drive for 2+ hours in thunderstorms that are producing lightning about every two seconds. Twitter can through with some incredible photos this evening.

These storms were able to sustain themselves because of a strong southward moving boundary that created a very unstable environment ahead of it. Additionally, temps were high, and the atmosphere moisture content was very high. This combined to create an atmosphere for storms to maintain stronger updrafts, and also to produce very, very heavy rainfall.

Instability was running really high this afternoon. h/t SPC
Instability was running really high this afternoon. h/t SPC
Moisture was running really high today. h/t SPC
Moisture was running really high today. h/t SPC

The thunderstorms initially developed in southern Indiana earlier this afternoon, and pushed southeastward, developing more storms to the northwest of BG and surrounding communities. These storms then congealed into a line of strong to severe storms as they pushed southeastward towards the region.

By this evening, a severe thunderstorm had began to show some signs of rotation over northwestern Warren County, and actually became tornado warned. It had a strong mesocyclone for a good bit, but it is unknown whether or not a tornado occurred near Smith’s Grove.

We’ll definitely have the latest on that if anything changes with it. Outside of the lightning and heavy rain, nothing was very widespread. Severe weather wasn’t too widespread, but definitely occurred. The most prominent weather entity today was the lightning, and that should be appreciated as long as you weren’t struck!