Chinook

I finally captured the weird red sky at sunset - it's just a little influenced by the wildfire smoke

KFWS radar storm totals for the last 48 hrs. Perhaps some areas of Texas will be changed from D3 drought to D2 drought.

Supposedly, the smoke concentration wasn't even that bad today, but then you still get Long's Peak looking like a ghost contrast-enhanced

KFWS storm total precipitation in the past 2 days and 9 hours

Finally, Texas has already seen some moderate rains this morning, and should have more in the short term

That is neat to see the fading light energy in the air in that video. I doubt the water makes light when lightning strikes. I assume the sodium and chlorine ions have to move a lot in order to conduct the 10000 Amps of electric current, but creating light probably isn't a part of that. Thankfully, I was never 10 yards away from a lightning strike at Surfside, because standing on a beach in a lightning storm can kill you.

This is a really cool picture from Surfside Beach, SC, retweeted by James Spann. When I was on vacation at Surfside, I always wondered what happens when lightning strikes the water. Does the water light up? I never found out. And this picture doesn't answer that question. I would suppose that if you are so close to a lightning strike to be able to easily see lightning hitting the water you should have gotten inside!

You are partly right. The last time >0.01% D4 status happened in the Midwest sector was 3/5/2013, a hold-over from the summer of 2012.

Yesterday, I drove about 1 mi from my place of Loveland to see if I could get a good picture to the south. (thunder/hail) then I got some big splatty drops. Then I ran back to my car. Then I got this picture about 1/2 or 1 hour later, of a hailstorm that tracked into Loveland and then went southeast.

perhaps another severe storm, 70dbz, hail, near Mayjawintastawm

Out of all those storms, some areas of Northwest Ohio got 2-4" of rain yesterday. This means that the Toledo area got 2-3" (1.5" + 1.5") or possibly more since July 30th. I am not sure if the cornfields need 3-4" of rain all at the same time, but here is Williams County, OH.

Vertical cumulus clouds in the evening light. What you can't see from this picture: the Mummy Range, which is normally visible. Today there were some supercells with 2-3" hail over the plains of NE Colorado.

This heavy rain provided a soaking for northern Iowa, but conveniently missed the drought area in southern Iowa and northern Missouri.

Central Pacific Hurricane Center:

Thanks, I guess that floaters web site is hidden pretty well, but you found it. Hector is up to 120 kt. It seems that the Atlantic is unlikely to produce a highly active season, but this Cat-4 storm might be scaring some Hawaiians, to some degree