Lightning

The eclipse is way too far away to have a forecast with that level of definition. I am sure next week a thread will be going for it. I am also waiting to narrow it in what I will do. You don't have to lurk. It is mostly friendly bantering with a bunch of weather geeks here.

I am going to go as a C around here. Snow: Oct/Nov/Jan: all above normal snow. Dec: a bit below. February: nothing needs to be said. March is looking basically normal-ish. Incredibly I currently stand a bit over 50" of snow. Reason for this high of grade: Really did awesome during that January stretch. While February didn't do anything winter like there was lots of sun, several great dog walking days and 2 separate thunderstorm events. Yes this actually helped because if it was raw and cloudy it would have dropped my grade!! I actually might end up around my normal ~60". Reason for not a higher grade: Very poor snow cover. Absolutely horrid winter sports. Green Christmas. Unless something "major" happens this will likely be my final grade.

Back end was a bit lame here with about an inch. Fun snow day.

I currently remain just on the southern edge of the snow with large flakes and good rates. Not sure it is going to last much longer based on radar but this has been quite the surprise today. A good 5" so far . Area's just to my north right on the Livingston/Genesis boarder I would not be surprised to hear of 6-8" totals.

Good 4" or so here. Did a bit of shoveling; can definitely tell it is later March on the asphalt!!

That precip along the IN/MI boarder is holding it's own pretty darn well and might not just disappear.

I noticed it was more intense on radar south of here during that time. I got about 1" during that period with about 3" total!! Gonna be interesting to see what happens the rest of the day. Models don't seem to see the southern part of the precip.

2-3" down. Looks like mid winter right now.

Around this area some apple buds are silver tip but most are not even that far yet. Further south and west of here in MI I bet there are more silver tips but I don't think much past that stage in at least most of MI.

Looking at the current condition of the buds, I don't believe there is any concern yet around here. From my experience with apple, cherry and peach trees is that the damage occurs once the blossom is out (or just popping out) and you get a good freeze or strong frost. When I was travelling this past weekend I didn't seem many blossoms until I got around and south of Springfield IL. St. Louis all the way to Oklahoma City area there were several trees in full blossom. A major freeze in those areas would be bad for them. What made Morch 2012 so bad is the flowers came out but the bees were not out. While the later freeze did cause some damage, most blossoms never got properly pollenated.

Went to Oklahoma over the end of last week and this weekend. On Thursday I drove through the storms around Chicago and saw some good lightning. Then I went through MO as the storms were going off. Lots of wind and good lightning but thankfully no hail while driving. Now I am home and its cold with ~1" of snow on the ground this morning.

I am planning to do a day trip, during that time, depending on the cloud cover expectations. Gonna be last minute planning like storm chasing

Just got back from our last ski trip for the year. Sad condition on the hills overall (normally this is a great ski time) but we did got 3" of snow Friday night and another 1"or so last night. Felt wintery with the snow caked on everything. Glad we stayed in the high hills around Nubs Nob. Driving around on Saturday there was not much snow in Petoskey itself.

Talking with my neighbors, they had picture fall of the wall with the thunder from that strike!!

What this doesn't scream winter to you

Wouldn't that be a kick in the pants.

The lightning strike has debris scattered over 100' radius area. Great storm this morning!! Edit: Also at the base of the tree there was about 1-1.5' deep hole. I took a picture but it just looks like a bunch of dirt

Another one with debris sticking in the ground (there were several but this was the best one).

Awesome lightning strike today about 200-300 yards from my house.

Sadly a teenage died while watching it being struck by a cannister during some of the explosions.

Mostly they are pretty darn good with the outlooks. If anything they tend towards over forecasting (which is not a bad thing with severe weather). Just shows while we have gain a lot of knowledge there is a ways to go with the weather!!

Oh yeah I agree that turning them back on when over is not needed. They didn't do that here. I was really just referring/wondering why the were only on for ~3 minutes. In each case here, the past couple years, the warning was just as the storm was beginning or had just begun. Several years ago I had a couple with warnings that went off once the storm was basically over. I have seen significant improvement at the DTX office with storm warnings lately. Likely partially due to the radar improvements that were done in recent years.

That explains a lot. I was wondering why the turned them off seemingly so quickly during the warnings I had last couple years. Makes sense to me.

Yes it is

Grand Blanc one was about ~15-20 miles north of me. Lots of lightning and on and off brief heavy rains, with multiple rounds of storms, over the course of 2.5 hours. Thankfully I did not get anything damaging this time!!