yesterday’s lightning criss-crossed rainbows over Catalina/Oro Valley. Couldn’t capture the lightning, but two strokes occurred while this glorious rainbow was in progress. Once again, being from Seattle, I have to say, “Never seen that combination before.” I now really wish the University of Washington had had a branch campus in the Tucson area–go Huskies! The first shot was taken at 5:49 AM, about the same time as the rainbow fragment in an earlier post. You can see that the other part of yesterday’s rainbow is in EXACTLY the same position as that colored highlight shown back then. It was odd, too, that there still was lightning with this very weakly, raining, and dissipating Cumulonimbus, and in particular, a cloud-to-ground strike. Seemed to continue the regime of unusually electrified clouds in the past 24 h, ones that seemed ordinary, or even weak, yet produced prodigious amounts of lightning, and continued to flash long after they seemed “dead” as clouds. That is, no new updraft areas apparent, just virga and weak rainshafts as shown here). Hmmmmm…..
Nice, unexpected thunderstorm this morning with an extremely close strike here about 3 AM. Total rain only 0.07 inches, but with an interruption of the summer rains predicted for several days, the mods say, any rain is welcomed!
