Hundreds Of Willamette Valley Lightning Strikes And One Exploding Tree

This is how the light show ended: with spectacular bolts of lightning over Salem.

But all the thunder and lightning actually got its start over the Washington Cascades–and with intense lightning around Battle Ground, Washington.

After the storms refused to move much, they finally started heading south into Vancouver at about the time we were starting our 6pm newscast.

That’s when a huge bolt slammed this tree!

This tree basically exploded when the bolt hit it. Only pieces were left. Heavy rain kept the tree from burning up.

After the storms crossed the Columbia River — it created a light show over much of Portland. At the same time, separate thunderstorms fired up near Hillsboro, Aloha and Cornelius–check this shot out:

A direct hit split the tree down to its base–and turned the top into a torch! Cornelius Fire crews handled this one.

How Many Lighting Strikes Hit I-5 Corridor & Willamette Valley

I had fun with these graphics I used on the 11pm newscast. I circled the area included – PinPointed the number of lightning strikes in that area – and kept widening out the area with each of these maps. These numbers of lightning strikes are very rare west of the Cascades!

That’s a whole lot of lightning for places normally dominated by cool and stable air rolling off the Pacific Ocean.

On Friday May 25th, 2012, low pressure over Nevada pumped unusually humid and somewhat unstable air into our skies. A warm day and terrain over and near the Washington Cascades worked together to help power these storms. Once they got going…they were on a roll!

Thanks to those of you who sent photos to news@koin.com – and posted updates on my Facebook weather page and twitter (@forecastupdates) – it’s fun to cover this weather together as a team!