Lightning hits Seattle-bound jet, puts on a show as summertime front sweeps through

SEATTLE -- That was quite the punctuation mark to end a weekend!

A rather strong cold front swept through Western Washington Sunday night, bringing a burst of heavy rains and vivid lightning, including one bolt that hit an inbound jetliner into Sea-Tac Airport.

Emily Todd was on Hawaiian Air Flight 30 from Maui into Seattle when the plane had to traverse that potent cold front just before landing around 11:15 p.m

SEATTLE -- That was quite the punctuation mark to end a weekend!

A rather strong cold front swept through Western Washington Sunday night, bringing a burst of heavy rains and vivid lightning, including one bolt that hit an inbound jetliner into Sea-Tac Airport.

Emily Todd was on Hawaiian Air Flight 30 from Maui into Seattle when the plane had to traverse that potent cold front just before landing around 11:15 p.m

SEATTLE -- That was quite the punctuation mark to end a weekend!

A rather strong cold front swept through Western Washington Sunday night, bringing a burst of heavy rains and vivid lightning, including one bolt that hit an inbound jetliner into Sea-Tac Airport.

Emily Todd was on Hawaiian Air Flight 30 from Maui into Seattle when the plane had to traverse that potent cold front just before landing around 11:15 p.m

SEATTLE -- That was quite the punctuation mark to end a weekend!

A rather strong cold front swept through Western Washington Sunday night, bringing a burst of heavy rains and vivid lightning, including one bolt that hit an inbound jetliner into Sea-Tac Airport.

Emily Todd was on Hawaiian Air Flight 30 from Maui into Seattle when the plane had to traverse that potent cold front just before landing around 11:15 p.m

SEATTLE -- That was quite the punctuation mark to end a weekend!

A rather strong cold front swept through Western Washington Sunday night, bringing a burst of heavy rains and vivid lightning, including one bolt that hit an inbound jetliner into Sea-Tac Airport.

Emily Todd was on Hawaiian Air Flight 30 from Maui into Seattle when the plane had to traverse that potent cold front just before landing around 11:15 p.m

SEATTLE -- That was quite the punctuation mark to end a weekend!

A rather strong cold front swept through Western Washington Sunday night, bringing a burst of heavy rains and vivid lightning, including one bolt that hit an inbound jetliner into Sea-Tac Airport.

Emily Todd was on Hawaiian Air Flight 30 from Maui into Seattle when the plane had to traverse that potent cold front just before landing around 11:15 p.m.

"Terrible turbulence during that bit," she said. Then came the flash.

Lightning Basics

What is lightning?

Lightning is a giant spark of electricity in the atmosphere between clouds, the air, or the ground. In the early stages of development, air acts as an insulator between the positive and negative charges in the cloud and between the cloud and the ground. When the opposite charges builds up enough, this insulating capacity of the air breaks down and there is a rapid discharge of electricity that we know as lightning. The flash of lightning temporarily equalizes the charged regions in the atmosphere until the opposite charges build up again.

Hey Golfers, Sports Fans And Everyone Else - Lightning Causes Thunder

Have you ever watched a college football or baseball game on TV and noticed fans sitting in the stands during a lightning delay. I always find it amusing that they stay during lightning but leave if it starts raining. A few years ago I was watching a sporting even on a major network. One of the announcers said something along the lines of  "it is thundering but we should be okay because I didn't see any lightning."

Severe storms with hail, winds, lightning possible in KC area as dangerous heat looms

Severe thunderstorms are threatening to return to the Kansas City area Tuesday afternoon and evening, bringing the possibility of damaging winds, large hail, flash flooding and frequent lightning.

While most people in the Kansas City area will see the chance for showers with embedded thunderstorms, the threat of severe weather is more likely south of a line stretching from Kansas City to Kirksville, according to the National Weather Service in Pleasant Hill.

The threat of tornadoes is very low with Tuesday's storms, according to the weather service.

Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/weather/article213837769.html#storylink=cpy

Everything You Need to Know To Stay Safe During a Tornado

Tornadoes

Tornadoes can destroy buildings, flip cars, and create deadly flying debris. Tornadoes are violently rotating columns of air that extend from a thunderstorm to the ground. Tornadoes can:

• Happen anytime and anywhere;
• Bring intense winds, over 200 MPH; and
• Look like funnels.

 IF YOU ARE UNDER A TORNADO WARNING, FIND SAFE SHELTER RIGHT AWAY

• If you can safely get to a sturdy building, then do so immediately.
• Go to a safe room, basement, or storm cellar.
• If you are in a building with no basement, then get to a small interior room on the lowest level.
• Stay away from windows, doors, and outside walls.
• Do not get under an overpass or bridge. You’re safer in a low, flat location.
• Watch out for flying debris that can cause injury or death.
• Use your arms to protect your head and neck.

https://www.ready.gov/tornadoes

Increasing Tornado Outbreaks: Is Climate Change Responsible?

Tornadoes and severe thunderstorms kill people and damage property every year. Estimated U.S. insured losses due to severe thunderstorms in the first half of 2016 were $8.5 billion. The largest U.S. impacts of tornadoes result from tornado outbreaks, sequences of tornadoes that occur in close succession. Last spring a research team led by Michael Tippett, associate professor of applied physics and applied mathematics at Columbia Engineering, published a study showing that the average number of tornadoes during outbreaks—large-scale weather events that can last one to three days and span huge regions—has risen since 1954. But the researchers were not sure why.
http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2016/12/01/increasing-tornado-outbreaks-is-climate-change-responsible/

Weather updates: Multiple tornado warnings issued in south-central Iowa

A tornado was spotted Monday afternoon in Ringgold County in south-central Iowa, the National Weather Service said. 

Weather spotters confirmed the tornado shortly before 5:20 p.m. near Mount Ayr, moving northeast at 20 mph, the service said. Minutes later, a severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located nearby. 

10 ways to prepare for tornadoes, strong winds and hailstorms

Is your home ready to withstand powerful gusts of wind and pounding hail? While damage from strong storms is often inevitable, there are steps you can take to minimize harm to your property and protect your personal safety. You shouldn't wait until severe weather is predicted in your area to take action – plan ahead for hailstorms, wind storms and tornadoes by following these steps.

Just Why Are Trailer Parks Always A Tornado Hotspot?

Although the 2014 tornado season kicked off with a whimper, not a bang, thanks in part to cool weather persisting across much of the United States, this past weekend was a particular violent one in terms of extreme weather, with twisters leaving behind them a sizable swath of destruction and despair across Arkansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, and beyond (and judging from reports out of Mississippi, this storm system is very much from done). At least 18 people, a majority of them residents of Arkansas, lost their lives in this weekend’s storms, the first reported fatalities in an otherwise quiet tornado season.

And while numerous “traditional” buildings and homes were leveled by this weekend’s deadly storm system, a handful of trailer parks were also destroyed including one in North Carolina that was “ripped to shreds.”

New Tornado Detection Could Predict Exactly When A Twister Will Hit

Most experts agree that waiting until you've heard a tornado's signature jet engine roar is a recipe for disaster. With only five to 13 minutes of advanced warning possible using current technology, your best bet is to seek shelter at the first hint of danger. By the time you hear the churning vortex of a twister, it's often too late.

Unbeknownst to many, however, is that tornadoes and the storms that spawn them generate something called infrasound. These sound waves have frequencies below 20 hertz (cycles per second) or beyond the lower limit of human audibility. Infrasound stations have been created around the world to monitor both man-made events (such as nuclear explosions and sonic booms) and natural events (such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and avalanches).

The Moore Tornado Disaster: What to know to understand it.

A massive and powerful tornado hit Moore, Oklahoma this afternoon, causing widespread destruction, including at least 51 deaths. It's the deadliest tornado since 2011, and one of the worst in the last 20 years. This evening, President Obama signed a disaster declaration for Oklahoma.

One Town, Four Tornados

On the evening of May 3, 1999, a massive tornado tore through the Oklahoma City area. Known today as the Bridge Creek-Moore Tornado, it’s infamous for its size (a mile wide) and strength (wind speeds reached 300 miles per hour, on par with a Tokyo bullet train). It moved, as tornadoes so often do, from the southwest to the northeast, touching down in the rural plains before churning its way through the suburb of Moore and up to Midwest City, just east of downtown — which was where it pulverized my dad’s truck.

Oregon’s largest wildfire continued to burn across Central Oregon, but firefighters have increased containment on the now 95,000-acre blaze.

The Boxcar Fire, near Maupin, threw out a 200-acre spot fire Sunday afternoon that kept firefighters busy all night trying to get a line around it.
They were successful, and containment reached 47 percent Monday morning, officials said in an update.
Today, firefighters will travel via jet boat to inaccessible areas to continue to secure the fire’s edge along the Deschutes River, officials said.
High winds could spread the fire to the east.

A Big Wildfire Season And A Summer Of Drought Awaits The Northwest

Federal officials anticipate a big wildfire season in the Northwest throughout July, August and possibly into September.

The latest forecasts show droughts throughout much of Oregon and Southeast Washington and the potential conditions for large fires if the region sees a week or longer stretch of hot and dry weather, according to the latest drought and climate outlook.

“If everything lines up with the dry condition and lightning, we could see an above-normal fire season across Oregon,” said Ed Delgado of the National Interagency Fire Center.

Current statistics show 53 large fires burning in 10 states, most of which are in Alaska. Oregon has four large active fires, including the Boxcar fire at nearly 96,000 acres near Maupin

Flooding concerns Tuesday, Flash Flood Watch Issued

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV)--- Keep the rain gear close for Tuesday as a couple of rounds of showers and storms move through. The heaviest of the activity is expected later this afternoon and evening.

June has only had nine dry days and the monthly total is well above normal. Rainfall totals today expected to be around an inch in most locations with localized areas much higher.

A Flash Flood Watch has been issued for extreme southern Wisconsin. This includes Lafayette, Green, and Rock county into tonight. While flash flooding is a concern today, river flooding could be a concern as the week moves on.

#TurnAroundDontDrown

Storm Sparks Small Fires in Chelan, Okanogan County

The weather system that passed through the region Monday morning produced a few small spot fires across Chelan and Okanogan County.   Jim Duck, Assistant Operations Manager with the Central Washington Interagency Incident Command (CWICC) said an 1/8 of an acre fire was contained this morning in Fox Canyon near Leavenworth.
A team of rapellers responded west of Lucerne on Lake Chelan where a fire was confined to a single tree.
Two small fires of undetermined size were reported in the Methow Valley.
The region is posted for a Red Flag Warning until 8pm tonight for low humidity and breezy conditions with Northwest winds possibly gusting up to 38mph.  Winds are expected to decrease down to 10 to 15 mph after midnight.

This wicked Virginia Beach storm went under the radar last night

Around 8 p.m. Sunday, this wicked storm rolled through Southeast Virginia without warning. Forecasters were watching as it approached Norfolk, but after a certain point, the squall line weakened below the “severe” threshold.
But it blew up again rapidly when it reached Virginia Beach and sent a wall of severe wind gusts — likely exceeding 70 mph based on radar estimates and video footage of the storm.
The National Weather Service issued a special weather statement for winds in excess of 40 mph, but no severe thunderstorm warning was issued for this squall line beyond Suffolk, Va. Looking back at the radar, it’s not surprising there was no warning out at the time. The storm looked like it was petering out after it passed Suffolk, but it exploded again over Virginia Beach.
The gust front, which is like a wall of wind that flows across the ground, away from a thunderstorm and tends to outrun it, is plainly seen on radar. When the outflow is out ahead of the storm, it prevents the storm from becoming too strong. But around 8:30 p.m., as the storm passed through Virginia Beach, it caught up with its own outflow and strengthened rapidly.
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UK records hottest day of the year, heat wave set to last into this weekend

A heat wave will affect millions across the United Kingdom this week as temperatures soar well above normal into this weekend.

While above-normal warmth has prevailed across the entire U.K. for much of June, the most intense and prolonged heat of the month will occur this week.

Monday became the hottest day of the year so far as the temperature reached 30.1 degrees Celsius (86.2 degrees Fahrenheit) in the London suburb of Hampton.

This mark will be in jeopardy to fall again this week as temperatures continue to trend higher across the country.