Nowcast???

[janezee]

Well, when I moved here, I thought that 'sunbreak" was a joke, until I realized that they use it all the time in the cloudy part of the year (10 months) to describe a momentary event that might happen and you might need sunglasses.

Last night, actually at 2:25 this morning, I was awakened by what I thought was a particularly bright firework. But it was silent. I hoisted my blind to see better, and, lo and behold, it was lightening!!!!

You of the rest of the country must understand that I've only experienced about 10 thunderstorms in the PNW in 19 years. We just don't have them here. I was flabbergasted! There was absolutely no forecast of any disturbance of the perfect weather that had been promised by the (lying) prognosticator.

I waited for the storm to pass, which it did in about 20 minutes, getting progressively louder then fading into the distance. I opened my laptop to check out the weather page, and this is what I saw. Yet another word they've invented, and a blurb that follows:

Nowcast as of 2:27 am PDT on July 9, 2012
Thunderstorms and showers continue to develop in the central and north Cascades and also westward into The Lowlands north of Seattle. These showers and thunderstorms are expected to track north affecting the I-5 corridor from Everett north to Bellingham and including the Admiralty Inlet area and San Juans. These thunderstorms will produce brief heavy rain and frequent lightning.

The Admiralty Inlet was rockin' and rollin' last night, and since I've been hit by lightening outdoors once, and two houses and three planes have been hit while I was in them, I get a little nervous. Glad to report that the hail was light, the house is intact, and the rain was over in about 10 minutes. The tomatoes that went in the ground last week are fine and dandy. Whew!!!!!

j

[meadowyck]

j

good to hear you survived as well as home and maters. I've lived all over the USA and when I lived in souther CA it was so hard to never have rain in the summer, as I'm a native Floridian who was use to seeing rain every day and most time more than once during the day, so I can understand the strange feelings that go along with having to experience weather patterns out of the norm.