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Best years of thunderstorms in Oregon?


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What are best years of thunderstorms in Oregon? I have access to their Oregon News Archives over at Newspapers.com which includes Statesman Journal full run and would like some recommendations of good thunderstorm years?  Here is for example one from April 1988 from far away.. What would cause a situation like this to experience lightning flashes from a system so far away?   I wonder if there was any unusual atmospheric effects on or around the same time that may have 'magnified' the lightning more then it would've normally been seen?

Statesman_Journal_Wed__Apr_13__1988_.pdf

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Justin will probably chime in on this one eventually.  

For the Puget Sound region a few standouts for me were July 1978, August 2000, and July 2008.  The 1978 storm was insane.  I remember it was in the low 80s at 8 AM that day and then all hell broke loose.  Wicked lightning for hours.  August 2000 had several days with thunderstorms.  The July 2008 storm was quite impressive, and featured lightning for something like 18 hours straight.  Another one I just thought of was July 1993.  It was a fairly short lived, but intense storm that cause local flash flooding.  At one point it seems like lightning was flashing at several strokes per minute.   

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Death To Warm Anomalies!

 

Winter 2023-24 stats

 

Total Snowfall = 1.0"

Day with 1" or more snow depth = 1

Total Hail = 0.0

Total Ice = 0.2

Coldest Low = 13

Lows 32 or below = 45

Highs 32 or below = 3

Lows 20 or below = 3

Highs 40 or below = 9

 

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On 9/19/2020 at 7:30 PM, snow_wizard said:

Justin will probably chime in on this one eventually.  

For the Puget Sound region a few standouts for me were July 1978, August 2000, and July 2008.  The 1978 storm was insane.  I remember it was in the low 80s at 8 AM that day and then all hell broke loose.  Wicked lightning for hours.  August 2000 had several days with thunderstorms.  The July 2008 storm was quite impressive, and featured lightning for something like 18 hours straight.  Another one I just thought of was July 1993.  It was a fairly short lived, but intense storm that cause local flash flooding.  At one point it seems like lightning was flashing at several strokes per minute.   

How about the 80s and 90s? I wasn't here before 1998 really so I am wondering if those eras spelled any good ones for the PNW? Did years like 1992-93 or 1995-96 have good ones since those were historic winters?  Do historic winters usually translate to decent shoulder season cold front events?

Did you  lose power in the 78 one?

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On 9/19/2020 at 7:30 PM, snow_wizard said:

Justin will probably chime in on this one eventually.  

For the Puget Sound region a few standouts for me were July 1978, August 2000, and July 2008.  The 1978 storm was insane.  I remember it was in the low 80s at 8 AM that day and then all hell broke loose.  Wicked lightning for hours.  August 2000 had several days with thunderstorms.  The July 2008 storm was quite impressive, and featured lightning for something like 18 hours straight.  Another one I just thought of was July 1993.  It was a fairly short lived, but intense storm that cause local flash flooding.  At one point it seems like lightning was flashing at several strokes per minute.   

Is this one part of the pattern of your 78 event?  It seems to be focused though on Eastern Washington so I wonder how far west it got? If it is a separate event does it seem like as intense?

Seattle_Daily_Times_1978-07-09_35.pdf

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1 hour ago, Link said:

Is this one part of the pattern of your 78 event?  It seems to be focused though on Eastern Washington so I wonder how far west it got? If it is a separate event does it seem like as intense?

Seattle_Daily_Times_1978-07-09_35.pdf 608.47 kB · 0 downloads

July 26, 1978 had a pretty nice thunderstorm outbreak. 

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2 hours ago, BLI snowman said:

July 26, 1978 had a pretty nice thunderstorm outbreak. 

Does the PDF even show up for you? I've never done this before so I don't know how it looks on your end of things. Should I just do a clip instead of the page?  It's from The Seattle Times.  Also how widespread was the 78 outbreak? Did Oregon/California get anything out of it?

AHA! I finally found it!!!!  It says Storm booms through area.    It appears Snow Wizard was right about the timing as a man was on the roof of the Snoqualmie High School and was critically injured at 9:15am after being struck by lightning from an intense storm.  City Light also had two transformers knocked out at 9:24am affecting a three block area.   How far does City Light's infrastructure even cover?  I assume just the downtown district..............

Seattle_Daily_Times_1978-07-26_1.pdf

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  • 2 weeks later...

Yup...according to my records it was the 26th.  Thanks for posting the newspaper article.

Death To Warm Anomalies!

 

Winter 2023-24 stats

 

Total Snowfall = 1.0"

Day with 1" or more snow depth = 1

Total Hail = 0.0

Total Ice = 0.2

Coldest Low = 13

Lows 32 or below = 45

Highs 32 or below = 3

Lows 20 or below = 3

Highs 40 or below = 9

 

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"Best years" can be subjective; that can be measured in terms of number of areas affected by storms collectively, or even shear number of lightning strokes in the Pacific Northwest.

2013 stands out a bit when you look at how many lightning strikes were recorded that year. I think I have maps still (Mark's weather links) of CG's literally painting all of western Washington and parts of Oregon (09/05/2013). Also in May 2013 a very impressive 5 day in a row stretch of convection in southern Oregon, on the 7th and 8th nearly all of Klamath County covered in CG's. 

There was an article I remember reading that said in September 2013 somewhere around 100,000 - 200,000 lightning strikes happened in just one late evening/night time event? I didn't save the article and not sure if you can even still find it.

The 1990's of course had really great years for thunderstorms. 1993 featured a few nice severe outbreaks including the Willamette Valley. 1995 as well, I think most of us heard about the Supercell on July 9th, monster sized hail in north central OR. That wasn't the only supercell that year, one happened in K-Falls with a reported tornado and silver dollar size hail on May 30th.

There's various ways to measure this sort of thing, we could perhaps come up with a point-system, and rate each year according to certain parameters? 

Ashland, KY Weather

'23-'24 Winter

Snowfall - 5.50"
First freeze: 11/1 (32)
Minimum: 2 on 1/17

Measurable snows: 4
Max 1 day snow: 3" (1/19)

Thunders: 11
1/27, 1/28, 2/10, 2/22, 2/27, 2/28, 3/5, 3/6, 3/14, 3/15
3/26, 

-------------------------------------------------------
[Klamath Falls, OR 2010 to 2021]
https://imgur.com/SuGTijl

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On 10/6/2020 at 8:08 AM, Timmy_Supercell said:

"Best years" can be subjective; that can be measured in terms of number of areas affected by storms collectively, or even shear number of lightning strokes in the Pacific Northwest.

2013 stands out a bit when you look at how many lightning strikes were recorded that year. I think I have maps still (Mark's weather links) of CG's literally painting all of western Washington and parts of Oregon (09/05/2013). Also in May 2013 a very impressive 5 day in a row stretch of convection in southern Oregon, on the 7th and 8th nearly all of Klamath County covered in CG's. 

There was an article I remember reading that said in September 2013 somewhere around 100,000 - 200,000 lightning strikes happened in just one late evening/night time event? I didn't save the article and not sure if you can even still find it.

The 1990's of course had really great years for thunderstorms. 1993 featured a few nice severe outbreaks including the Willamette Valley. 1995 as well, I think most of us heard about the Supercell on July 9th, monster sized hail in north central OR. That wasn't the only supercell that year, one happened in K-Falls with a reported tornado and silver dollar size hail on May 30th.

There's various ways to measure this sort of thing, we could perhaps come up with a point-system, and rate each year according to certain parameters? 

In recent years 2008 was a real standout for spectacular lightning up here.  We had a few days in July and August that had some big time CG bolts.  September of 2018 was pretty insane too.  The storm that cancelled a football game or something like that was off the charts.

  • Storm 2

Death To Warm Anomalies!

 

Winter 2023-24 stats

 

Total Snowfall = 1.0"

Day with 1" or more snow depth = 1

Total Hail = 0.0

Total Ice = 0.2

Coldest Low = 13

Lows 32 or below = 45

Highs 32 or below = 3

Lows 20 or below = 3

Highs 40 or below = 9

 

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29 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

In recent years 2008 was a real standout for spectacular lightning up here.  We had a few days in July and August that had some big time CG bolts.  September of 2018 was pretty insane too.  The storm that cancelled a football game or something like that was off the charts.

Yeah 2008 had some good ones. July 3rd early in the morning Hillsboro/Beaverton had a couple close ones near my apartments. 1am I had one shake my place. I think Vancouver/BG areas had some that night and Salem as well.

There was that severe event on May 24th, all three metro counties simultaneously were under severe thunderstorm warnings. They came from the east moving west and I recall it pouring rain for an hour straight. 

June 4th 2009 always holds a warm place in my memory banks. That was the first time I ever saw shelf clouds in my life. Nearly every town and city west of the cascades had a thunderstorm that day. Since KRTX went public in 1995, I'm pretty sure there has not been a radar presentation like 06/04/2009 before or after that event.

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Ashland, KY Weather

'23-'24 Winter

Snowfall - 5.50"
First freeze: 11/1 (32)
Minimum: 2 on 1/17

Measurable snows: 4
Max 1 day snow: 3" (1/19)

Thunders: 11
1/27, 1/28, 2/10, 2/22, 2/27, 2/28, 3/5, 3/6, 3/14, 3/15
3/26, 

-------------------------------------------------------
[Klamath Falls, OR 2010 to 2021]
https://imgur.com/SuGTijl

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