Welcome to "Weather Stuff". Ask away on any questions you may have and I will do my best in answering them. From time to time I will post some things that weather weenies may find interesting. Thanks for joining.
Will start with a cool pic of the recent volcanic eruption on the island of St. Vincent in the Caribbean. The dark,puffy "cloud" -- though mainly ash, is a flammagenitus, pyrocumulus cloud or fire cloud. In this event there was likely also lightning - though extremely rare to catch it with a camera. If lightning is involved the cloud then is called cumulonimbus flammagenitus. This process (how the lightning is formed) is not yet fully understood, but is probably in some way associated with charge separation induced by severe turbulence, and, perhaps, by the nature of the particles of ash in the cloud. In a typical thunderstorm- most lightning is produced by the collision of ice and water particles.
But what is really cool imo about this pic (and I believe quite rare) is the formation of a type of a lenticular cloud in the top center. In a nut- the atmospheric processes going on in this pic are not well understood and simply fascinating to myself. Welcome aboard!!!

Thanks for making this group! I'm so excited!

Thanks for setting this up!

Looking forward to reading some good info here.

I took this enroute from FLL to SAT we were at FL430. We just started the turn back on course.

Some of the overshoots were well above our altitude.

Those are some high tops. Your post on "overshooting" made me think about an article I just read recently.
Here is some stats as the article is in metric from our friends to the North-
-111C = -168F. That's some serious cold tops.
67,000 FT above sea level tops.
The meteorologist in the article (watch the video) does an excellent job of explaining exactly what's going on.

Super cold thunderstorm sets record with -111C or -168F

Thanks for setting this up. Weather is just fascinating.

WhiteWolf: "Those are some high tops. Your post on "overshooting" made me think about an article I just read recently.
Here is some stats as the article is in metric from our friends to the North-
-111C = -168F. That's some serious cold tops.
67,000 FT above sea level tops.
The meteorologist in the article (watch the video) does an excellent job of explaining exactly what's going on.


Super cold thunderstorm sets record with -111C or -168F "

Thank for sharing. Thunderstorms are just giant heat exchangers.

MHS67- Fire weather for sure!!
Over the past few weeks I have been trying to come up with a thought for precip (drought relief in N.MN?) for the upcoming Summer as water levels in the Northland were (I believe) pretty low before freeze up. When I come up with something I like and trust- I will post here.
I will also try to keep all informed with all are different geographical locations, MHS67- in CA etc. whether it's fire weather or anything significant.

oh good, I was hoping to hear if it will be as dry this year. I lost a few plants last year to the dry spell