09-10 analogy

Just heard the Dora gun go off nearby. CG hit a nearby TV tower. Perhaps my favorite aspect of a thunderstorm; a CG strike that lights up the room in broad daylight, followed immediately by thunder that sounds like the mating call of 10,000 brontosaurs with sore throats.

Storm migrating from my south has had more T&L with it than a lot of more well-advertised storms coming from the traditional north and west this season. I think some tiny hail might be mixed in as well.

2010-11 basically sucked IMO. Carmaggedon was memorable locally primarily courtesy of the internal combustion engine. Otherwise it was 4-7” of (admittedly convective) slop that pummeled NYC with 20” and PHL with 15”. ( I don’t think Baltimore proper did much better.) Boxing day would be by acclimation the greatest screw job ever if we weren’t still coming of the high of the previous winter. Groundhog Day wasn’t our storm of course but that didn’t stop about 2/3 of the rest of the country from cashing in one way or another. Plus I think 40n got a few other moderate events that dc got squat from.

Got a kick from rereading how my pooches slept thru the whole thing. After a decade, I think their non response sticks in my mind more than the quake itself

Dec 09 to Jun 12 was quite the stretch around here: the pre-Xmas 09 snow, the 10 Days that Whited Out Our World in late Jan/early Feb 10, Carmageddon, the tail end of Superoutbreak 2 in April 11, the quake, Irene, Lee, the derecho. Every one of them a big memory (Lee only because I happened to be driving though it) for most DMVers. Since then: well, Jan 2016 of course. But other than than, a few isolated severe events (but anything region-wide?), a couple of good winters without a real signature event, the March 2018 windstorm (didn't really excite me, but I guess I'm the minority there). Nothing to make a scrapbook over. This summer's severe has been good for a lot of folks but all the real fun has edged me by. Then the B-listers: Isaias, the January 2019 snowstorm, a few localized (if notable) flash floods. Just a personal observation, YMWOV. I realize you could lift a lot of 2.5 year periods at random throughout the 100+ year recorded weather of the DMV and make a similar conclusion, and the subjectivity with such an exercise is off in the nth dimension, but it'd be hard to beat 12/09-6/12 from my POV.

The remnant surface is in SW PA now and what to Dc’s south look like it’s going wide to the right? So I guess I shouldn’t plan on much local excitement, not that expectations were that high anyway.

Dodged in MBY the intense stuff again, but there's been a rolling thunderstorm for a couple of hours now and just when I thought things were winding down, I heard a long low rumble. I've been doing some work and haven't checked the radar or this site, but have the windows open, drinking a beer of course, and it's like the bygone era: a thunderstorm that eventually quits and just when you think the action is over for the night, there are signs there's more to come. But you don't know for sure because the umbilical cord of Internet real-time data is not there to verify it for you or not. And, in this past time, you're too lazy to go down and turn on the TV and the weather radar they used to broadcast on cable channel 98. So it's a surprise: that grumble or thunder, or a sudden flash of light or, if you're really lucky, a CG strike in the neighborhood, hitting one of the nearby TV transmission towers, whose sound mainlines right down the spinal cord and would upset the dogs (if I still had them, may they RIP.) Sometimes nights like this are best when you just shut out the real-time data and coverage, and do something else with the windows open, non-weather related, but all the while in the back of your mind you're waiting to hear (or see) whether the convection can keep on keeping on. Then there's an opening act, loud or subtle, a flash or a flicker, and you remember why weather is so damn invigorating, even if it's not extreme. And then, while you're typing an attempt to capture the moment, the feeling of a summer thunderstorm that won't quit, or a train of them following the boundary the first one put down, and then you hear the crickets, and realize 1) that the show is probably over for the evening and 2) that the summer has passed the peak of its ziggurat, and a little melancholy seeps in, and for both reasons: hearing the crickets and not hearing a storm. But then you wander over to SPC and realize that tomorrow is a marginal risk, and expectation springs anew.

Gonna bail soon andcg strokes are only a couple miles away and being at the highest point in town with a chain metal fence and no trees prolly not the best idea as much as I love lightning I’m a bit of a wimp about it

Yeah I’m seeing lightning now across entire western horizon, including branches. Not often I’ve seen this active an electrical show from this vantages that spans the whole horizon. I wonder how that matches with LD display now.

Outflow from moco storm moving thru now. Looks like another near miss Imby to go along with wed and both storms on 7.1 up on ft Reno and there a generous Amount of cg with that moco cell

Decent little back-ended event.

Wonderful out. Pity the transition from yesterday's much to today's gloriousness was punctuated IMBY by four hours of distant thunder and not much else. Hope the weather is as nice on Thursday. Running the kid up to Baltimore to tour a university.

Yeah, quite ghastly out there. Elsa -- or its remnants -- needs to do a triple Axel jump to the west so that it pulls what the HWRF is showing

In the end, pretty garden variety-ish. So much for my theory about full sun and shelf clouds. National did report a gust that touched severe though. Another LSR of a tree down along Canal Road. Then again, every thunderstorm event around here, invariably there’s a report of a tree down along there or MacArthur or Clara Barton. Surprised at the local FFWarn; the rain wasn’t especially torrential IMBY. Maybe they’re expecting another round before the warning expires at 630

Full sun still but I can see a pretty well defined shelf cloud. That kind of juxtaposition is usually a good sign.

I have a feeling some clouds are gonna burst in up nw soon. Boundary doing its thing.

Yesterday was the loudest so far. I didn’t get a decibel reading, but while parked under a grove of trees, I’d say the sound was unpleasantly loud when the song cycle (for lack of a better term) peaked.

Except for that one storm last week, this thunderstorm season has been underwhelming so far. Then again, "it's Chinatown DC, Jake."

Gapped so far, and a peek at some of the SPC mesoscale doesn't seem too encouraging for DC immediate. Still, the Sterling discussion said: "Continued moisture advection and height falls overnight will likely lead to at least scattered shower and thunderstorm activity persisting well into the overnight hours, though with somewhat less intensity overall" (ital mine) So maybe we'll get something a bit later?

Full sun day and instability produces around here again, as people have said. Solid T&L event last evening. Been waiting on one of those for awhile. Lots of CG around, especially at the tail end of the storm: something else that's not uncommon.

Could be. It’s a pretty thick canopy, soil temps might be cooler. I love that park. Everyone talks about Rock Creek, which is wonderful, but Glover Archibald is NW’s little secret.

Doesn’t make sense, I know. Maybe all the cicadas there were in therapy or something at that time.

That cell to my SW seems to be trying to build up my way. Cells in central Montgomery aren’t exactly dryline magic.

Curiously, when I walked into Glover-Archibald Park yesterday, the background "song" was notably quieter there, and there were fewer carcasses sprinkled on the ground: though to the latter point, they are harder to pick out in a forest's undergrowth than on, say, a concrete sidewalk, so maybe it's just a matter of contrast. The background whirring is frankly louder when walking along Wisconsin Ave than it is when walking the G-A P trail. You'd think with all the trees around, the cicadas would have been flying around like P-51s during Big Week in WWII and a few would have landed on me and done their ritualistic sssslllooowwww doo-wop dance or whatever thing they do. (Evidently the males form choruses.) But that didn't happen at all while I was in the park. The distant, "whirring" song is more pronounced in certain neighborhoods than others, as is the more immediate "crackling" sound. Still, neither is as loud yet as some of the sleet storms we had this past winter. It's making me miss my dogs. 17 years ago, both our beagles were alive and in the prime of their lives, with the older one trying his damndest to gorge out on the bugs. Poor little buggers seem doomed, though, when they're belly up. I've tried to turn over a couple. They're 17 years underground and in their literal moment in the sun, they're flat on their back and can't do a damn thing, and I try to help 'em out and move them into the grass so they can get it done. But it's hard to turn them over without hurting them. I get the impression that once they've gone to ground, it's basically game over for them anyhow. Most of the mating occurs in trees, or so I've read. Thing is, I'm fond of the little guys but they really don't look that much different from roaches, which I absolutely despise and immediately and prejudically exterminate whenever I see them. I was walking with my wife, two cicadas alit on her and she hated that. Eek-eek, and this is someone who doesn't readily go into "eek" mode. Whereas the Flying Cicada Brothers don't bother me at all. If cicadas kept the mosquito population in line, I'd be partial to having them around all season long, every year. But then the novelty would wear off. ,

Certainly not a Brood-x worthy storm so far.