Cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-air lightning in the anvil region, close to a supercell’s updraft, can be fast and furious. This unique breed of lightning, which is almost continuous much of the time, is observed almost exclusively with supercells. Lacking a formal name, the chaser slang “anvil zit” caught on in the 1980s as the most common term for this subspecies of lightning. This is not my favorite moniker for it (zit=pimple, right?)…but I doubt something more accurate (like vault flash) will take over! To this point, the supercell had produced at least one confirmed tornado, a separate picturesque wall cloud and numerous reports of hail larger than baseballs. Not yet finished after 5 hours of mayhem across the eastern Texas Panhandle, it later would dump a downburst before finally expiring in the Red River valley, north of Vernon.
2 E Kirkland TX (20 May 99) Looking ENE
34.3808, -100.039