Here’s a final lightning map, showing strikes over the past 24 hours. Strikes before 9:30pm Thursday are in blue.
This illustrates how tough it is to forecast thunderstorm development. Model forecasts (and ours) said there was going to be some sort of overnight event, but picking exact locations for thunder was tough. Some spots were nailed several times (eastern Clark County, Multnomah County, and Hood River County). But some of you were totally left out. Almost all of Marion & Yamhill Counties were missed. Same with extreme NW Oregon and Linn County. Who would have thought there would be no lightning in the Central Cascades??? I even got an email from a competitor complaining that he was stuck in Central Oregon seeing nothing while we had a nice light show here.
If you missed out, you’re not alone. I saw ONE flash on the 37 mile drive home last night, then it was all quiet. Nothing the rest of the night, then AFTER daylight, lots of lightning with the band that moved up the eastside around 5-6am…I didn’t see much of anything. Observing lightning from a concrete bunker (TV station) isn’t the preferred method!
On a side note, it’s always amazing how usage of the blog really heats up with exciting weather. I think yesterday had more hits than any day since the mid-March snowfall!
Chief Meteorologist Mark Nelsen
FOX 12 Weather Blog 
We got the light and bang show in sandy
Picked a bad day to take the boat out. Oops
It’s going to be a chilly night! Dewpoints in the 40s, for the first time in a while.
Already 62 here after a high of just 67.
Last year my low for the 23rd of July was a chilly 47.
Partly sunny skies in sandy
Anybody know where ODOT gets its weather info, always seems right on the money when NOBODY else is!
Sung to the tune of Bill Withers Ain’t No Sunshine:
Ain’t no sunshine in this town,
Ain’t no sunshine in this town,
Ain’t no sunshine in this town,
And it makes me want to frown,
Ain’t no sunshine in this town
All these dark clouds every day,
All these dark clouds every day,
All these dark clouds every day,
Think I’ll book down to LA
All of these dark clouds every day.
🙂
Nice. It’s a summer in the Pac NW that needs Vit D supplements. ;P
I love it! Although it’s now partly sunny in sandy
7/21/2012 Oregon (All) Temperature Summary
Warmest:
High:97 at Weatherby Rest A(2390 ft)
Low: 67 at Rye Valley(I-84(2230 ft)
Coldest:
High:58 at Mount Hood Meado(6601 ft)
Low: 30 at Sand Creek (US 9 (4525 ft ) & CRAZYMAN FLAT (6100 ft )
Largest Diurnal Change: 59 degrees
CABIN LAKE (91/32 ) (4560 ft )
This still catches my funny bone..
Another morning above 60 degrees.
Cloudy skies but I see there are some breaks developing on the satellite.
7/20/2012 Oregon (All) Temperature Summary
Warmest:
High:100 at Rye Valley(I-84(2230 ft)
Low: 74 at Rye Valley(I-84(2230 ft)
Coldest:
High:53 at Timberline Lodge(7001 ft)
Low: 35 at Sand Creek (US 9 (4525 ft ) & Mazama (4590 ft )
Largest Diurnal Change: 41 degrees
FOSTER FLAT (83/42 ) (5000 ft )
Heaviest Rainfall:
0.54″ at BURNT RIDGE(2955ft)
0.53″ at LOCKS(128ft)
We missed out completely. But that’s OK since we had a nice little t-storm on Tuesday AM.
Best T-storm so far was the 1998 one.
I’ll never forget 99, (was it 99)?? Yeah, 99 right… I guess I forgot
seems like it was starting to clear here earlier but now the marine layer seems to have rolled in and dropped my temp. from 66 to 64
And now the blog goes back to its usual Summer slumber…. Until we either see a major heatwave. You know 500mb heights 595dm+, 850mb temps 25c+ or another round of t-storms. Odds are that we may not see anymore t-storms this Summer. It’s realistic to think that.
Hopefully if we see an indian summer identical to 2009, maybe we can have a couple more shots of storms this September/October? Then of course we could also rely on cold cored convection in December… ^_^
Yes last night was great fun but the gray stuff lingering around is getting old I am wondering if this stalled low pressure is going wipe out another summer sun filled weekend. My bet is yes again we have only so many weekends left. I would really would like to see a six week sun fest starting now but Mark has doomed us with 50 shades of grey for the rest of the summer.
Eastern Washington’s turn now…severe thunderstorm watch.
Crazy; not over for Washington huh? lol
I think I was like 8 the last time I remember waking up to a thunderstorm (and yes that was a long time ago).
In sandy, knocked out router. Flash! Flash!, boom! Boom! That’s how quickly it was here.
The same as back in 1985 in estacada. Severe thunderstorm started 11pm and end 9am. I was with forest service, as we had to check out fires.
At one point last evening, as the second batch of storms was skirting by to the East of me, I noticed a faint but distinct smell of forest fire, and I was wondering if it was blowing in off the mountains with the storms… Will be interesting to see if any major fires break out in the Cascades over the next few days or so… Hopefully there was enough rain in the mountains to beat down anything that may have gotten started.
Incase some folks were not online when I uploaded this; I’ll share it on this post to make sure everyone gets a chance to see it
The CG at 1:08 is my favorite one.. my camera caught that one really well.
Nice shots! I only took a little video last night, would have been great if I’d taken more lol
It was amazing the amount of lightning over the immediate foothills!
Here are pictures from last night’s storms over Vancouver.
Awesome photos, Tyler… I love the one with the bridge! 🙂
Yeah the bridge shot is no doubt my favorite! This photo album makes me want to upgrade to way better cam than mine ^_^
And interesting how the sky is alluminated past picture 20 on the 2nd page…
Timmy that was looking SE from Brush Prairie…that is all from the metro area lights. Shows you how bad light pollution really is in the area. I get really frustrated when I see new lights being put in that don’t block the light from going up…what’s the point of illuminating the sky?
Superior!
The last set (SE Bolts) is breathtaking. Best coffee table picture book of lightning I’ve ever seen.
even the SCR got left out 🙂
Yeah I was about to ask myself why the Oregon Cascades were all left mostly quiet.. lol
Yeah its over and I can’t wait for next one to come… whenever that is. Nothing on models are ‘eye popping’ as of yet. No outstanding ULL’s in the near future; at least not any that will act anywhere close to this one.
Fun’s over… for now.
You can clearly see the Milwaukie bubble and how it diverted the storms around the core of the PDX Metro area. 😦