THUNDER BOOMERS ! ! !

arrgh. I am into online scrabble and I was playing a lady who reported temps of 100 and flickering lights. Then she disappeared. I hope she is okay.

The temperature here today was 36 centigrade--that's about 97 F, with the humordex (i don't know what's so damned funny about it), that's well over 100. She is in Ontario? Some pylons went down north of the city according to the radio.

The storm front has moved on, but you can hear the continuous thunder off in the distance. While it was overhead, there were nearly continuous lightening strikes. The trees and the shrubs took a beating--there's standing water in the back yard where we never have standing water. I'll bet we got about a half inch of rain in twenty minutes--it was punishing. You can hear sirens off in the distance--the police, fire and EMT crews are going to be busy tonight.

CBC is reporting that there was a punishing rain and hail, reports of power outages, unconfirmed reports of tornadoes and damaged houses and buildings. Environment Canada frankly doesn't know what is going on. A reporter said that the rain came down so hard on the expressway that in minutes, people in the right hand lane were driving through floods--the rain was coming down so hard the storm drains couldn't handle it.

The Edmonton - Calgary Rocky Mountain corridor has the 3rd most lightening strikes in N. America. Our summer season is so short, it's not a stretch to see a short, nightly storm for weeks on end.
I've seen grapefruit sized hail. Had transformers blow in our alley and had a neighbours tree blowup next to my bedroom, in the middle of the night. I used to be in a pipe band, one Canada day, after a parade we were coming back from Buck lake, a old drunk dude needed to pee. He got off the bus and whilst draining his bladder an errant bolt bounced off a transformer, on a series of power lines we were parked next to, and hit the back of the bus. All the people in the back seat got zapped and all their hair stood up. I was further up the bus, had turned my back on the old guy and watched the whole thing. Everyone of the people gave a "Jesus, what happened" kinda shout, some kids started to cry. Not because it hurt, but because it scared them...
Edmonton Folk Fest, sitting in Galagher Park, on the hill in the river valley, watching an awe inspiring wall of black blow across the prairie and city. It took an hour before the mile high clouds stood proud above us. The clouds parted and we watched an interior colourful lightshow. The lightening bolts came from every direction, shooting through the clouds at a manic pace. There was no rain, it was beautiful.
Last year in Vancouver, I was living in a highrise over the Burrard inlet. I missed the nightly prairie lightening but one night a huge storm came through, the massive cloud boomed and echoed over the mountains and it streaked the blood red sky with lightening bolts. Amazing
Finally, in 1987 I was working full time and taking two night school courses. One week, it was so hot, and the humidity was like nothing we flat landers are used to. I was so bored and I would find a seat near the windows and day dream. This week however, the sky was wild. Each night the clouds got dark and the lightning grew fiercer. On the thursday night, the clouds were green. The lightening shot sideways, across the horizon. The next day, we were unprepared, innocent or ignorant that we lived at the northernmost point. We had no idea it was possible. No one had ever seen or heard of one, but the next day, an F5 ripped through our city...

I'll bet you got more, we get storms like that. I've seen 1/2 meter in as many minutes, I've canoed down roads turned rivers. Homes routinely get flooded from rain storms. I've tried to explain these storms to people who live in other places and I get looks of disbelief.

Well, i've seen some weird storms on the American prairies, so i would believe it. This was the first time, though, that i'd ever seen continuous lightening strikes and heard continuous thunder. The heavy rain and winds were on a par with what one can expect in Tornado Alley.

Yeah! I once sailed a homemade raft down the gutter and into Lake Ivanhoe in Orlando, Florida. That was my first brush with the law, and since they couldn't decide what to charge me with they took me home. It's also the only time I got my picture in a newspaper. This was circa 1952, and I still have the clipping.

I thought about you today when I saw this Set...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/08/national/main20070184.shtml
77 cadets sent to hospital after lightning strike

Serious bummer . . . is everyone OK?

I read where everyone is fine. I think there were a couple that had to be taken (maybe 4) to the hospital by ambulance -but they are in stable condition. The others were just taken as a precaution. That's a lot of kids with one strike!

Just had a few minutes of gumball sized hail here, now just heavy rain. Must be summer.

http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110608/110608_extreme_weather/20110608/?hub=CP24Home

that was a heck of a storm

I was leaving for dance class at 7 - heard some rolling thunder - came in to warn Set. As I drove west, the sky was kinda a weird colour and there was a lot of cloud to cloud lightning and the thunder was continuous.

When I got to where I park for the dance studio, I drove around the block a few times til I could find a spot where I could just runnnnnnnn for it. I didn't get wet. I could hear lots of sirens in the distance as I ran to the studio, and the traffic lights were flashing.

People who arrived at the studio less than 5 minutes later were deeeeeeeerenched to the skin. They'd been caught walking from the subway to the studio.

Came out after class, and it's a lovely calm evening.

That's hail at least 1.5 inches in diameter in your photo! Interesting to note the rough core and the clear ice surrounding it.

Thunderstorms are exciting, but highly variable and sometimes dangerous. The heat engine driving it all is the condensation of water vapor in the air as it rises and expands in the storm. The latent heat of condensation is about 1000 times the specific heat (the energy required to raise the same mass of water 1 deg F), -- a potent source of energy, needing only a solar heat-induced updraft to get it started. With a strong enough updraft and the resulting low air pressure at the core you can get enough Coriolis-induced circulation to create a tornado. In some cases the air rises (and cools) so fast you get supersaturated entrained water vapor that can form thick layers of clear ice on any solid in it - like the core of the hail in your photo, or the wing of an aircraft flying through it.

I've watched (from a distance) really big thunderheads at high altitude with the turbulent clouds "boiling" as they grew, ascending as much as four thousand feet per minute. All bets are off either flying through or just walking under one of them.

sounds like it was more intense than last week's light show here.
we didn't have no continuous thunder...

I used to do a lot of work for the John Deere Company's subsidiaries that mined fertilizer from rock phosphate. Id often get "picked up" in Pittsburgh to fly out to Oklahoma and West Texas and Florida to do work. I remember sitting in the copilot seat and watching the color radar . The pilot let me keep a "weather eye" during the spring and summer storm season. Id always be amazed at how defined the storms are when you see em at 80 miles out. I was particularly sensitive to purple (That was the color that they had programmed , I guess, for the highest intensity part of the stroms) Often wed go from one storm only to have another just to its left and right and wed sneak in between the cloud tops in what appeared to be an ocean of clear air space. I never took any pictures and I could kick myself for not making a photo file.

I am terrified of T storms because of some childhood incident with a storm. Its always been my displeasure to have been sitting in some "f;ying living room" into the fringes of storms in places like Florida where they are compact, small, and severe rain makers. I remember coming in to Imockalee muni AP in a small plane and the storm just hit as we landed. We were slammed down so hard that the landing gear suspension broke badly , the plane was compromised and the plane was on the disabled list for days. SO I lerned the secrets of the bee and honey trade in Imockalee

First time i've ever seen continuous lightening strikes and heard continuous thunder. CBC just reported that yesterday evening, in the nearby city of Vaughan the nearly continuous lightening strikes caused several house fires and that at least a dozen houses were damaged.

kinda scary. My dogs would be trying to cral under whatever chair Im sitting in and the cat would be running into the basement. Thats proof enough that cats are waaay smarter than dogs .

The girl dog is still frightened by thunder, although not as bad as she once was. She stayed under the bed upstairs, and barked at it now and again. The boy dog, however, is goofy. He barked, but he also ran from the back door to the front door, and wanted me to let him out. He was excited.

we are loaqding up fpor some kind of storm activity. Its hot , the humidity is high, cumulus clouds are starting to go strato, and theres a wind from the west kicking up.