WEATHER OR NOT?

We’re having another thunderstorm this morning! started about half an hour ago and it’s pouring outside!

Unreal how much difference a few miles makes in this part of FL. Here it's clear and a few fluffy clouds here out by the Bay to the west.

Radar here shows that you'll be clearing soon. blue sky coming

Yep! It poured for about an hour and flooded the street, now its clearing up and the sky is blue, I love Florida weather!

Another one! nice thunderstorm! I love it!

Today is in the 80's, but I went to the annual Mt View Buddhist Church bazaar to have some chicken teriyaki, sapporo beer, and cold noodles for lunch with some friends.

They have a plant sale


I was fourth in line for the food


Children and taiko drums


Some of the outside food booths (we always eat in the auditorium)


Flower arranging display


Young ladies in kimono

Looks like a nice gathering, but I wonder whose idea it was to have polish sausage there?! (Just doesn't fit!)

It's a polish joke.

Didn't ya know? Japanese Americans get along with "everybody."

Well, okay. But PLEASE tell me the girls in kimonos weren't eating polish sausage. That's just a little more cross-culturalism than I could take!

Actually, they were watching the children play taiko drums, and they were snacking on Japanese food.

We got hit 2 times and got maybe an inch. Steam was rising off the rooptops.
Watched it out of pcitre window...pretty dramatic.

One of these lightning bolts hit pretty close - very loudly like a cannon - must've been less than 1/4 mile away. My dog was not happy and so he hid under a table for most of the afternoon. I pulled him out ... the big lug ...and hugged him for awhile which he appreciated.

We're supposed to have another round of more of the same today - maybe hitting before dawn and then after 11am during the day about another inch or so.

I'm right in that purple swath.

Sigh. Fingers crossed.

Yikes. Hope all is well!

It's pissing down here.

we had a big storm come through last night
major roads floaded
part of regional transit train line down due to flooding
clothesline came down in the backyard

still raining

we need the rain, but it would have been nice to get it spread out over a few weeks instead of a few hours

So far there's not a cloud in sight.

Radar looks totally fine -- some minor things in the distance. (Like, Michigan.)

We'll see.... Glad we went to the State Fair yesterday.

Yikes!

http://www.weather.com/news/weather-severe/northeast-severe-threat-20120725

A frontal system is on the move out of the Great Lakes and is set to bring a significant threat of severe thunderstorms from the Northeast to the Ohio Valley on Thursday.

The potential exists for widespread damaging winds from parts of southern New England to Indiana. At least 36 million people are in this zone of enhanced severe risk.

Severe thunderstorms are expected to be most numerous from late afternoon into the evening in the above-mentioned areas. Parts of southern New York and southern New England may see multiple rounds of severe thunderstorms during this period.

There is also a threat for tornadoes with any discrete thunderstorms forming along and near the warm front.

Some cities in the enhanced severe threat:

New York
Hartford
Albany
Harrisburg
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Columbus
Cincinnati


Bottom Line: Be Alert and Prepared

Now is the time to prepare for the threat of severe weather. Thursday's thunderstorms have the potential to produce widespread straight-line wind damage, so keep these tips in mind (and share them with your friends and family):

Falling trees can be deadly! It's an underrated danger, but it doesn't take a tornado or even a severe thunderstorm to knock down trees and tree limbs. Avoid driving or walking in heavily forested areas during thunderstorms - find a sturdy building. If driving and no shelter is nearby, find an open parking lot or field away from trees and power lines that could fall on your vehicle.
Take severe thunderstorm warnings seriously. As we saw in late June, severe thunderstorms with damaging winds can create a lot of havoc. Pay attention to any enhanced wording in severe thunderstorm warnings, such as "destructive winds expected."

Have a plan. If you have outdoor plans, know where to go for safe shelter if dangerous weather threatens, and know how you will get your severe weather warnings. This is especially true if you're in a vulnerable or remote area such as a campsite.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2161


Major severe thunderstorm outbreak expected

Posted by: Dr. Jeff Masters,
2:16 PM GMT on July 26, 2012

A dangerous outbreak of organized severe thunderstorms with strong, damaging winds is expected this afternoon from Ohio eastwards through Pennsylvania and into New England, says NOAA's Storm Prediction Center (SPC). They have put the region, which includes Columbus, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and New York City, in their "Moderate Risk" area for severe weather, just one notch below the highest level of alert. Much of the region is also under advisories for extreme heat, with temperatures in the upper 90s expected. This extreme heat will help energize the thunderstorms by making the atmosphere very unstable. A cold front passing through the region will trigger the severe weather episode beginning around 2 pm EDT this afternoon, near the Indiana/Ohio border. This front already triggered a round of severe thunderstorms early this morning across Michigan, which knocked out power to 16,000 customers. This afternoon, severe thunderstorms may organize into a complex that features a bow-shaped echo. If such a complex brings violent straight-line winds in excess of 58 mph (93 km/hr) over a swath of at least 240 miles (about 400 km), it will be called a derecho (from the Spanish phrase for "straight ahead".) The atmosphere is not as unstable as was the case for the June 29 - 30 Mid-Atlantic and Midwest derecho, however. That storm was one of the most destructive and deadly fast-moving severe thunderstorm complexes in North American history. It killed 22 people, knocked out power to at least 3.7 million customers, and did hundreds of millions in damage.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1061148665&srvc=rss

‘Explosive’ weather warning for Bay State

By Renee Nadeau Algarin
Thursday, July 26, 2012 - Updated 1 hour ago

Meteorologists are warning of the potential for “explosive weather” later this afternoon in Massachusetts, including the possibility of flash flooding and even tornadoes in the Berkshires.

And the warning sign to watch for? The sun.

“We have a lot of clouds across the area. The sunshine will provide the trigger to destabilize that very moist air mass, and that will result in severe weather. If the cloud cover doesn’t clear out, then the prospects of our anticipation of severe whether would be far less,” Charlie Foley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton said.

The storms are being brought in by a warm front moving from south to north and made up partly of a tropical mass bringing lots of moisture, Foley said. How hard they will hit depends on the sun.

“We expect the sunshine to arrive and destabilize the air mass, and that could result in, again, explosive weather,” said Foley.

Updated information from the National Weather Service shows cloud cover breaking up as the warm front moves toward the Bay State. The warm front was moving over Pennsylvania around 2 p.m. and is expected in Southern New England by 4 p.m. or 5 p.m.

The National Weather Service has issued a hazardous weather outlook for parts of the Bay State warning of dangerous “supercell” thunderstorms and said that the possibility of tornadoes could not be ruled out..

Foley said the greatest potential for funnel clouds is in Connecticut, but parts of Massachusetts — even the metro Boston area — could see a twister.

...

The National Weather Service also issued a flash-flood watch for much of the state lasting from 4 p.m. today through tomorrow morning. Dangerous torrential downpours are expected to inundate areas with upwards of two inches of rain in a short period of time, the agency warned. Significant flooding may occur in urban and poor drainage areas, meteorologists warned, also citing the danger of flooding from small streams.

Other threats from the incoming storms include damaging winds of 60 miles per hour or more and hail, according to the National Weather Service. The chance of thunderstorms persists through early Sunday, as meteorologists expect a separate line of storms to move in from the west.

Our storm happened and is pretty much done (hopefully not famous last words), it got scary-dark but the wind wasn't bad, it's mostly just been torrential rain (which was badly needed) and the occasional lightning.