7/23/2010 - DeKalb Bolts

A rather amazing night across northern Illinois. Continuous thunderstorms dumped anywhere from 3-8 inches across rain-soaked areas north of I-88. Uniquely, my house had experienced very little rain over the past three weeks (<0.5"), despite all the flooding north, west, and south. That changed last night ... we had 3.34" in just under 6 hours. Even though we had some pretty significant street flooding and a bit of fresh water trying to come into the house at about 4 am, we were lucky. Folks just to the north appeared to get two-nights worth of back-building MCS action, with rainfall totals nearing 8-11 inches in some locales. Anyway, I snuck out for a few moments near 11 pm to capture some lightning as the storms continually redeveloped over the top of DeKalb and migrated northeast. A lot of the lightning was intracloud or CGs embedded in rain, which would cause blow outs in the photos. I was able to capture some bolts, minus the shrouding rain. Below are two of the resulting images.

Doppler storm total rainfall. My house is the red cross. Image illustrates the dramatic gradient between the haves and have-nots.