Last night, I was spending the night at SUNY Oswego, the college I will be attending starting next month, for Freshman Orientation. We had a thunderstorm around 2 in the afternoon, but it was the one 13 hours later that has the campus talking today!
Thunderstorms moved into the Oswego area around 2:30AM and lasted for about an hour. During this time, lightning was literally flashing at least once every second! The winds were very strong as well, knocking down wires in the city (according to the National Weather Service.) Perhaps most exciting, however, is what one of my fellow meteorology freshmen saw. He went up to the 8th floor of the dorm and watched the storm come in off the lake. He reported this morning that he and others saw a waterspout out over Lake Ontario. Sadly, I was not with them.
This pattern of scattered severe thunderstorms will continue for the next few days. A very hot and humid air mass is centered towards our south. We are feeling the affects of this with temperatures in the 90's. However, we are on the edge of this air mass, meaning cooler air isn't too far away. This leads to the development of thunderstorms, often becoming severe. Keep an eye to the sky the next few days!
As with almost all our hot periods, this heat will start well to our west, baking the Rockies and Planes. The heat can only expand so far north, and once it reaches that threshold, it heads east.
