1 Storm, 15 Minutes, 1300 Lightning Strikes
Temperatures in the 90s, dew points in the 70s and a little instability in the atmosphere gives you the perfect recipe for an afternoon thunderstorm in North Carolina. On this July afternoon however, the storm was producing lightning like I’ve never seen.
It was just before 2pm on Thursday, July 16, 2009. North Carolina had enjoyed a period of very LOW humidity most of the summer, but that was not the case now. Some very strong storms developed southwest of Raleigh and resulted in a few Severe Thunderstorm Warnings. But it was the quantity of lightning produce by this storm that was truly amazing.
NBC17’s Precision Vipir was logging the number of strikes in a fifteen minute period, which is shown in the picture below. You can also see the amount of lightning indicated by the white dots over the radar return. The amazing thing about the statistic of 1354 lightning strikes in a fifteen minute period is that it occurred in a storm with an area of 1200 square miles.
Damage reports associated with the storm mainly involved wind knocking down trees.
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