A weakening, outflow-dominant supercell churned SSE toward us as we observed from the NW outskirts of Pampa, hoping for some good lightning viewing and photography. Instead, we got one of the most peculiar cloud arrangements I’ve witnessed around a storm—a midlevel skirt of radial spikes, reminiscent of the crown of the Statue of Liberty, and with enough night light to help it take its own picture. Although cloud-to-ground (CG) strikes were almost nonexistent, so much in-cloud lightning flashed through the storm at all levels that the cloud structures could be front-lit and silhouetted, imparting a rather robust depth of texture and an otherworldy beauty for a nocturnal lightning scene.
3 W Pampa TX (20 Jun 8) Looking N
35.5339, -101.026
The “Liberty’s Crown” Storm
A weakening, outflow-dominant supercell churned SSE toward us as we observed from the NW outskirts of Pampa, hoping for some good lightning viewing and photography. Instead, we got one of the most peculiar cloud arrangements I’ve witnessed around a storm—a midlevel skirt of radial spikes, reminiscent of the crown of the Statue of Liberty, and with enough night light to help it take its own picture. Although cloud-to-ground (CG) strikes were almost nonexistent, so much in-cloud lightning flashed through the storm at all levels that the cloud structures could be front-lit and silhouetted, imparting a rather robust depth of texture and an otherworldy beauty for a nocturnal lightning scene.
3 W Pampa TX (20 Jun 8) Looking N
35.5339, -101.026