30,000 Lightning Strikes, NE Risk

My wife just called to ask me if there was a "Severe Thunderstorm Thingee" in effect today (because our daughter has an important soccer game tonight). She was correct.

There is in fact a Slight Risk of Severe Thunderstorms (as issued by the SPC) for encompassing Lake Erie and spreading out southward and including all of Indiana and Ohio, and part of Pennsylvania and New York. This is fairly rare this time of year in the Ohio Valley and Northeast, so those of us living under the risk (such as OfficeMate Henry) are getting hyped to the potential of seeing some severe storms today.

What's happening now? Well, you won't want to be sight-seeing at Niagara Falls this morning, folks. A strong bowed line of storms is making its way into New York from Ontario this morning. This is what the radar composite, showing both U.S. and Canadian radars, looks like currently. As of 8:30 am, AccuWeather.com LightningPlus showed that over 30,000 lightning strikes had struck between Cleveland, Ohio and Niagara Falls, New York in the last two hours.

2-HOUR LIGHTNING STRIKES* (ANIMATE | ZOOM)

The bow echo is weakening this morning however and is a shadow of its former self as evidenced by these radar pictures from the King City, Ontario and Buffalo, NY radar sites:

*US & Regional lightning strike maps provided by AccuWeather.com Professional. Zoomed map by AccuWeather.com LightningPlus. All data from the U.S. Precision Lightning Network.