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All Images Copyright Terry Pallister
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| A strong cold
front approached New Orleans and brought with it a strong squall line in
advance. I came out and set up about 6:30 am. The heavy cloud
cover kept dawn from lighting up the sky at first. Storm cells raced
NE along the squall line. Lightning was not frequent, but it was
intense. At 6:49 I got my first strike, an absolute gem, about 4
miles to the WNW out over the Lake.
The lightning ended for a while as dawn began to break through. About 7:20 am the squall line suddenly began to noticeably advance toward the airport. The sky turned jet black. I managed to get one more strike. Just before the squall line hit, several spectacular strikes hit the airfield, but each out of the camcorders view area. As the squall hit, winds gusted over 60 mph for about 10 minutes. The rain came down in torrents. I was lucky to be able to get inside to save the equipment from being damaged. For the following 2 days the temperatures dropped to the upper 20's overnight. |
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| A strong January cold front with freezing temperatures approached the city with heavy thunderstorm activity in advance of it. I began recording at 7:45 pm facing to the WNW out over the Lake. The strikes were mostly in the rain and did not show up well. The lightning activity decreased a lot as the storms hit. The one shot above occurred at 8:40 pm after the heaviest rain had just moved on. It was to the NNW about 6 miles away. |
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| After the first storms moved on I changed to the other balcony to face toward the ENE out over the Lake. Lightning was now more than 8 miles away with little or no thunder. I recorded these between 8:52 and 9:02 pm. Many flashes that looked great to the naked eye looked overexposed on tape. After this storm I decided to reduce the exposure more for night storms. The second row above is from the same flash with two very different strike points. |
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| As the first storms moved further away I began seeing flashes and hearing thunder back to the WNW. I turned and shot at the new cell. Again the lightning looked better to see than on tape. The strikes were between 6 and 7 miles away, between 9:06 and 9:10 pm. The lightning quickly died out. The last image above is another example of camcorder ghosting at the bottom of the picture where the channel looks very faded. |
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| On Thursday, February 25, I had hernia surgery. As fate would have it, thunderstorms moved into the New Orleans area just 2 nights later. Nothing was going to stop me from getting some lightning pictures if there was a way to do it. A very good friend who stayed with me for a week during my recovery carried the equipment for me and brought me to the airport. The lightning was almost all sheet lightning as the storm moved through and weakened. The only two shots I could get were after the storms went by about 10:35 pm. Both were far off to the ENE from the airfield. I couldn't wait to get back home to lie down. This was pushing my recovery to the limit. |
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| As if by design,
more storms rolled into New Orleans 3 nights later. Still hobbling
around from the surgery, my friend again brought me and the equipment out
to the airport as the storms neared. I was still much too weak to
climb the stairs to the balcony, so I had to set up at ground level.
At first it was frustrating because it was all sheet lightning as the storms
moved in. Heavy rain and strong winds forced me inside. But,
then the rain and wind suddenly let up. Lightning strikes became
fully visible. Many were brilliant to see. Because of the buildings
support columns I could only aim in one direction. To move out further
away from them would have caused the rain to blow right in on the camcorder.
Still there were a number of nice shots. I had profited from the
overexposed look in the January 22 storms by reducing the exposure quite
a bit for this storm. Still some strikes looked too bright.
The view of all of the images above is toward the NW. The strikes ranged from 2 to 4 miles away and occurred between 11:25 and 11:35 pm. Then the rain and wind moved in again. |
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| After the activity moved past to the SSE, I went and set up at the front of the airport and shot toward the SE where just a few intracloud flashes were still occurring. I got the one above at 12:11 am. |
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| After 2 days
of storms just missing New Orleans, a complex of thunderstorms finally
moved in during the late morning. The first round of storms with
very heavy rainfall hit just after 11 am. Most of the lightning strikes
were obscured by the heavy rains. I waited around as more activity
was due.
The 2 images above were from the same strike sequence in a later storm looking WNW at 1:03 pm. They were part of 5 strikes to the ground in the same flash. The other 3 strike points were just to the right on the airfield, on the south side of the building, and off to the east from the building. They all ranged between 0.2 and 0.5 miles from me. The last 2 of these strike points knocked out power in the area for about 20 minutes. The threat of more storms kept me on the spot until after 3:30 pm, but none had much lightning. |
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| Thunderstorms
developed in the New Orleans area during mid-afternoon. An unusual
low pressure system this far south for May was approaching from the west
that developed divergence aloft over a large area of the Gulf Coast.
Divergence aloft helps to pull air upward from the surface. Good
convection often results when this happens. Many areas to the east
and southeast got really intense storms after the initial day's development
moved past New Orleans.
Overcast skies darkened as clouds thickened. I set up on the west balcony and faced WNW. A little before 3 pm rains began to fall and lightning began to strike. The strikes were well scattered around. I was only able to get a few good shots between 3 and 3:15 pm, but the show was very entertaining. I reduced the exposure a little too much so that it looks more like a night storm. The first 2 strikes were about 4 miles away. The big treat was the third bolt that hit the water, just 1.4 miles away. Just before the rains let loose for just a few minutes, the cloud bases lowered so much that the last shot above looks very far away, but it was only 2 miles from me. The whole system quickly moved on to the east and southeast. I wish it lasted longer. Radar showed some very impressive cells soon after the action left my area. |
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| After an extended dry spell, conditions became favorable for thunderstorms during the late afternoon as a cold front approached. A storm formed just beyond downtown New Orleans and drifted away from me toward the south. I set up on Harbour Road. There was very little lightning and the above shot is the only one I got. It occurred at 4:47 pm and was about 5 miles away. |
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| More activity
developed after dark along the weak frontal zone. A storm formed
and moved south off the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain just before 9
pm. Unusual about this storm is the reddish appearance to the sky
and lightning. The storm was 10 to 15 miles away to the NW.
The great distance leads to differing colors depending on the quality of
the air. In this case, air had moved into the area from Oklahoma
and Texas from previous days when windy conditions prevailed there.
Reddish dust had been kicked up and then carried toward New Orleans by
earlier thunderstorms. This is not all that common here, so it was
quite a treat to see the unusual color. In many larger cities red
lightning is more common because of various pollutants in the air.
These strikes were all far away with the camcorder zoomed in a great deal to get what I could. All occurred between 9:05 and 9:26 pm. Thunder was barely audible for a few of the strikes. The storm died out over the water. |