 |
All Images Copyright Terry Pallister
|
| For the first storm of the day I was set up on the west balcony looking WSW. There wasn't much lightning. This strike occurred at 1:31 pm about 4 miles away. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| While still waiting for the first storm to do more, a new cell developed on the east side of the airport. I moved over to the east balcony. The strikes on the first row were about 3 miles away and shot facing ENE. They occurred between 2:01 and 2:23 pm. The 3 strikes on the second row at 2:30 pm were from the same flash and had different strikes points on the water, about 5 miles away. There were several of these strikes hitting well away from the heavy rain area. If I were in a boat in that area I would have been really nervous. |
 |
| Showers began developing early. I came out to the airport at 9:30 am and had to wait until a little lightning finally occurred. I set up on the east balcony. Much of the lightning was off to the right around the side of the building. This one shot was about 4 miles away and occurred at 10:28 am toward the east. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 v |
 |
 |
| Very early on
this Sunday morning a storm formed out over Lake Pontchartrain about 3:30
am. I came out and set up. The lightning fizzled and I gave
up and headed home. On the way I saw two flashes and decided to come
back. The above shots occurred between 4:32 am and 5:57 am.
There were several 15 to 20 minutes gaps with no lightning. The lightning
was always about 15 to 20 miles away. A few times I heard very distant
booms of the more intense strikes coming from higher up in the clouds.
I was facing NW out over the Lake and zoomed in for the images on the first
and third rows. I zoomed back out for the images on the second row
because at one point this cell to the N produced several "out of the blue"
strikes that shot out well away from the cell. The most impressive
of these I missed because it was well off to the right, but it was truly
beautiful to see.
I finally came home about 9 am and collapsed. I continued to stay and wait as cells kept trying to form after 6 am. I was afraid to leave for fear one would produce some neat lightning. The only thing that kept me even remotely interested after 6 am was the incredible sunrise with towering cumulus formations in the eastern skies beautifully lit up by the sun as it edged higher above the horizon. |
 |
 |
| I set up on the west balcony at the airport for this short lived storm with little lightning. It developed to the west beyond UNO in the early afternoon. These two strikes occurred at 1:23 and 1:31 pm about 3 miles away. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 v |
| After a week
of chasing many showers or thunderstorms without any luck, I did have some
success with one of two storms on this day. The first formed out
over Lake Pontchartrain to the NW about 8 miles away. Lightning
took quite a while to develop. There were several multiple stroke
lightning strikes, and I was fortunate to capture one of these. The
cell was fairly broad. Lightning struck from most of the cell, so
it was just a matter of luck to get some on tape. The strikes above
occurred between 3:33 and 3:44 pm.
The multiple strike sequence is shown on the second row above. The first was the main strike which had quite a few additional return strokes without branches. The second is a nice double. The channel in the third image clearly shows the same upper part as the left channel in the second image, but the lower part of the channel strikes a completely different point on the water. Watching the tape shows a very erratic jumping appearance between the 4 channels. 90 minutes later another storm formed well out over the Lake off to the NE about 15 miles away with no audible thunder. None of the strikes look all that good. |
 |
 |
| I set up on the
east balcony of the airport for this short lived early afternoon storm
with little lightning. There were only two visible strikes and I
was lucky enough to get them both. They were 3.5 to 4 miles to the
east at 12:53 and 12:55 pm. After that the cell just rained itself
out.
This was to be the last good storm for June, but I set up for a number of other storms that either produced no lightning, or the lightning was buried in the rain shield. On one evening a down burst cell formed right over me, but there was no lightning. Very odd indeed for such big rain event cells. June was to be the only above normal rainfall month for the active thunderstorm season. In fact the year ended up with a rainfall deficit of over 12 inches for New Orleans. |
 |
| July saw a drying trend of the atmosphere with fewer thunderstorms forming. On this day a short lived cell formed to my east. This is one of those directions where I have to guess which side of the airport building to set up. I did manage to get the one nice shot above at 6:30 pm, about 1.4 miles away. There wasn't much lightning anyway. |
 |
 |
| This storm formed NW out over Lake Pontchartrain in the late afternoon with strikes about 6 to 10 miles away. It was yet another storm with very infrequent lightning from about 4:30 to 6 pm. There was a one hour gap with nothing. The cell area remained nearly stationary and kept showing promise to keep me waiting and trying. These two strikes occurred between 4:40 and 4:45 pm. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 v |
 |
| A weak upper
level disturbance allowed for a few more storms to continue to build at
night and drift northward. Most were far south along the Louisiana
coast. I took my two labs out for a nice long walk about 2 am.
Distant lightning flickered far off to the south. But I kept noticing
one towering cumulus slowly growing far NNE out over the Lake. At
the half way point of the walk the cell had developed far enough to produce
a flash every couple of minutes. By the time we got back home 30
minutes later I figured the cell would have died out, but it was still
going on. I quickly rushed out and set up on the balcony and shot
out toward the north. The cell was more than 15 miles away.
I never heard thunder.
Zooming in was futile because the storm was so far away. So, I decided to try to get strikes shooting out from the upper part of the storm. I also decided to try to increase the shutter speed from the normal 60 to 100 frames/second. Since this type of lightning lasts for several frames at least, I hoped to see if the increase in shutter speed would help cut down on the over exposure problem on the first return stroke with all the branches. Most came out too weak. So, I may not try this experiment again unless I see a night storm with lots of the "out of the blue" type lightning. The lightning occurred between 3:54 and 5:08 am. Again, the lightning was not frequent. Of odd interest is the intra-cloud discharge in the first image on the second row. The path came out at the bottom, curled upward, and then darted playfully back into the cloud above. The third image on the second row is another playful example. This one came out and down from the upper part of the cell, then jumped out from a middle layer of cloud and down again, and finally disappeared back into the cloud. |