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All Images Copyright Terry Pallister
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| I discovered about 4:30 pm that a storm had formed on the front side of the airport. I rushed to get my equipment and set up. The lightning activity had already weakened quite a bit. After a 15 minute wait I got this one good strike at 4:46 pm off to the SSE about 3.5 miles away. |
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| After 10 days with no storms, two short lived thunderstorms formed on this day. The first formed out over the Lake to the NW. The pair of strikes above occurred at 12:52 pm about 3.5 miles away. |
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| The second short
lived storm formed to the SSW toward downtown New Orleans about 45 minutes
after the first storm died out. The 3 strikes in the picture above
were 1.2 to 2 miles away.
The short duration of these two storms is rather common. This is why it is so hard to chase storms in this area. One does not have time to get to a better location before the lightning is gone. |
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| A long and hot
late afternoon of storms that left me really drained when I finally got
home. There was a lot of waiting. However, sometimes good things
come to those who wait!
The first storm was too far away to tape from the front of the airport. I returned to the spot where I had set up on July 6th. I was a little late and only got the two pictures above facing SSE as soon as I started taping at 4:38 pm. The strikes were about 5.5 miles away. A Harbour policeman stopped me to ask me what I was doing. He was nice and said it was okay. But the lightning ended. Off to the W and NW new billowing clouds were developing, so I moved back to the airport. |
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| I rushed up to
the west balcony to set up as clouds were building just after 5 pm.
The clouds were slow to build to the point of producing lightning.
But just before 5:30 pm it started. Having learned how much more
spectacular lightning will look if the camera is zoomed in somewhat when
a storm is a bit distant, I did so. It cost me some shots, but what
I did get was really terrific and well worth the sacrifice. Better
to have a few outstanding pictures than a lot of so-so pictures.
The images above were all taken in just a 12 minute time span from 5:24 to 5:36 pm. They ranged between 1.8 and 4 miles away. This storm weakened, but other clouds were building just to the right. So, it was time to wait again. |
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| The next storm
cell that developed was further away. I foolishly tried to rush to
the car and chase it. It developed too fast and I knew I couldn't
catch it in time, so I returned to the same spot at the airport.
The new storm merged in with the old storm and some lightning began in
it again. But the lightning was erratic and I kept readjusting the
camcorder's view. I got the first shot at 6:29 pm as shown on the
top row, about 8 miles off. Finally at 6:40 pm I was truly rewarded
with a classic. The 3 images on the second row above are from this
classic strike about 4 miles away. The first picture on the third
row is all 3 strikes merged. The second picture on this row shows
the last two strikes merged.
The last 2 images on the bottom row above occurred just a few minutes later after I repositioned the camcorder to face NW out over the Lake. They were 5 to 6 miles away. For me this was all over by 6:45 pm, but I kept trying to get more for another 25 to 30 minutes. When I got home and saw what I had gotten, I was more than pleased. I was ecstatic! |
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| A storm had formed about 2:45 pm, but the lightning was not all that great, and I didn't get anything. But I was back up to the balcony a little after 5 pm for a new storm. I taped without success for some time. Lightning was striking somewhere else and not very often. But at 5:24 pm a magnificent bolt struck in my camcorder's view facing WSW toward UNO. The 2 images above are from this one strike about 5 miles away. Even though there was only this one success, it is worth it all. A gem! |
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| I discovered a storm outside the front of the airport after 5 pm. I rushed to get my equipment and set up. Even though I was late, I did manage to get one nice strike before the storm weakened. It was about 3 miles away facing SE at 5:27 pm. |
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| A second storm
formed about an hour later to the NW out over the Lake, but very little
lightning. Yet a third storm was to form overhead and extend NE into
the Lake just after 7:30 pm. Again there wasn't much lightning.
While I was wandering around the balcony waiting for lightning to strike,
it did right in front of me on the airfield at 7:46 pm. Bang!
The thunder made me jump. At least part of the strike showed up in
the camcorder's view. Wish more had.
20 minutes more until another strike landed in the camera's view as seen in the second picture above. It struck 2.2 miles away to the ENE beyond Bally's Casino boat. I waited longer, but that was the end of the show for the camera's eye on this night. |
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| The weather pattern
was changing to one with a number of tropical disturbances affecting the
New Orleans area. In general, storms associated with tropical disturbances
(tropical waves, tropical depressions, tropical storms, and hurricanes)
do not produce much if any lightning, just lots of rain.
A tropical wave to the south in the Gulf of Mexico affected New Orleans with increasing showers and thunderstorms after dark. Because we were so far away from the core of the tropical wave, there was some lightning. Cells approached from the east. I came out an set up a little after 10:30 pm. I was able to get one terrific strike about 3.5 miles SE from the airport. Notice the spectacular detail of the branches. This is one of the best shots I have ever gotten. It was also the last I was to get during the 1998 summer thunderstorm season. I kept having to come back out and set up over and over again through the night as new storms approached from the east. But each time the lightning either ended before reaching me, or the flashes were shield by the heavy rains, so I couldn't get anything else. When I got up the next morning it was pouring down heavy rain. Once in a while there was a boom of thunder. During a let up in the rain I rushed the dogs out for their walk and contemplated going to the airport to set up. By the time I got the dogs back inside the rain was coming in again in buckets. Too late to haul the equipment to the car. The humidity was super high. A few minutes after I got back inside, I heard a succession of booms of thunder coming closer each time. The center of the lightning strikes passed right over my house with several striking extremely close. This was the end of the summer thunderstorm season. Tropical Storm "Charley" formed in the central Gulf of Mexico during the day on August 21st. It moved away from us. Several other tropical storms and hurricanes affected New Orleans during the coming month. Huge amounts of rain were dumped on several occasions, but no lightning. |
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| Colder months can produced thunderstorms in New Orleans as storm systems approach and move through the area, especially if there is sufficient warm air in advance of the system. Some activity approached after midnight. I came out about 2:30 am, but the storm moved through with little more than sheet lightning. After the storm passed I was lucky enough to get part of a beautiful intra-cloud lightning discharge. |
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| Storms approached the city toward daybreak. But I didn't get anything as the storm moved in or over us. After the storm passed I did get one intra-cloud burst of lightning as it shot out from the cloud now located far out over Lake Pontchartrain to the north at 7:05 am. The above 3 frames are from that burst of lightning. |