storm

Video From Severe Weather Event On May 7th

On the evening of Friday., May 7th, 2010 I noticed a line of severe thunderstorms on the radar making their way across Ohio via the Lake Erie shoreline. These storms were pumping out a ton of electricity so I decided to go to my favorite spot with a milkshake and try to record some cloud to ground lightning strikes. Not only did I successfully record some great lightning strikes, but I was able to capture the giant shelf cloud that was being pushed in front of the supercell thunderstorm that tracked all the way from NW Ohio to the Cleveland area. This particular storm had a history of producing tornadoes but didn’t do so around the Cleveland area. However, the illuminated shelf cloud was incredible to see. Below is a video of the lightning in action but before you watch that, here are a couple screen captures from the video I recorded.

You can barely make out the shelf cloud to the left hand side

Shelf cloud starting to encroach on downtown Cleveland

My favorite picture clearly illustrating the shelf cloud in action

Very ominous roll cloud moving through downtown

Thunderstorm As Seen From TopThrillDragster

On Friday evening, a line of thunderstorms moving South East across Lake Erie managed to hit Cedar Point before they came my way. Knowing that Cedar Point has come cool webcams at the park, I decided to check out the view from the Top Thrillside Dragster and sure enough, I got a great view of a thunderstorm pouring down rain over the lake.

Click to see a bigger version

Click to see a bigger version

On the right side of the picture, you can see heavy rain falling from the sky. An ultimate web cam shot would be to see a waterspout over the lake from this view. I’m still waiting!

Incredible Lightning Video

While uploading the rest of my footage from the hail storm that hit northern Ohio on August 7th, I came across a featured video on YouTube of a lightning bolt. This was no ordinary lightning footage though as you can actually see all of the feeders traveling to the ground. Once one of the feeder bolts touches the ground, you can see the bolt light up with electricity. This is one of the best videos I have ever seen which clearly illustrates how lightning is formed.

Is this video a fake? Personally, I don’t think so. I think this video was taken with one of those super cameras which can take thousands of frames per second. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out this post I did on a camera which shoots 5,400 FPS.