Amazing Northern Lights Show

Last night was perhaps the best show I have ever seen.  Even to the naked eye, the whole northern sky was lit up around 11:30pm.  Here is a time lapse of the whole evening and a few images.

Noctilucent Clouds and Beautiful Sunrise

Every year for about 6 weeks we get the opportunity to see Noctilucent Clouds...  3 weeks either side of the Summer Solstice.  They happen about an hour after sunset and an hour or 2 before sunrise.  On Thursday they were so bright they actually lit up our bedroom.  They are WAY up in the Northern sky... About 250,000 to 300,000 feet above the earth's surface.  Still images are nice, but I really enjoy watching them on time lapse.  Here is a panorama image from Cam 2 and Cam 3.

Here is a time lapse.  I like watching the spider web type tentacles that grow on the horizon.

An interesting fact about these clouds is that there is not a recorded event of them prior to 1885.  There are a lot of theories about how they are formed, but the prevalent one is that they are ice crystals on comet dust.  I have to wonder if there isn't a relationship to the industrial age due to the lack of previous reports. 

The sunrise on Thursday wasn't too shabby either....

Cliff Mass did a nice blog on these events as well:

Cliff Mass Noctilucent Blog

 

A Spectacular Light Pillar Show

 

Periodically I see a few light pillars from my night images.  On the evening of May 3rd we had a show like I have never seen.  It was pretty spectacular.  Cliff Mass picked it up and did a blog on it.  He gives some nice detail about how this phenomenon happens. He also said some very kind words and shared the video I just presented at this years Weather Workshop on May 1st.

Cliff Mass Light Pillar Blog

A 5+ Hour Aurora Borealis Show

Last night we had a great Aurora show.  It lasted for over 5 hours.  Here is a time lapse of it.

March 28th Stormy Day Recap

Yesterday, March 28th we had a weather day that provided just about everything, except a water spout.  Although at times it looked close.  The day started with gusts to 30+ by 7:30am, 40+ by 9:00am and peaked at 53mph at 10:40am.  The house was shaking.  I have put together a few videos of yesterday.  One of the most interesting was when the cold front passed in the afternoon.  We had steady south winds as you can see by the flag and then there was a rapid about face Northerly wind that came with heavy rain and snow mix.  At the end of this video you can actually see snow accumulating on the enclosure glass.

Here is the Doppler radar video from this event....

Here is about a 2.5 minute recap going from cam to cam.  There was a LOT going on....

Here is a 3 camera panorama time lapse of the same period.  I like this perspective because you can see how the clouds interact.

But wait....  There's more....

Around 6:45pm the sky got very dark, the wind picked up and the white caps were solid toward Bush Point.... Click on the images....

 

And moments later we had this spectacular sunset...

But wait....  There's still more....  Under the full moon, a massive anvil cloud passed by.  At the end of this video you will see a flash.

Cam 3 picked up the lightning that caused the flash on the Night Cam....  What a weather day....

Large Structure Fire in Freeland, Whidbey Island

Sadly, around 1:00am this morning a fire started in a two story structure on Whidbey Island.  Fortunately nobody was home and nobody was injured.  It eventually spread to 2 - 120 gallon propane tanks that were venting.  The resulting flames were spectacular.  My cam picked it up.  KOMO also picked it up.  

Here is a zoomed in image at the height of the flames.  It looked like a nuclear detonation...

A time lapse also shows the intensity...

KOMO picked up my video and added more detail:

KOMO Article On Whidbey Fire

A Rare Ground To Cloud Lightning Event on February 26th

A little before 8:00 on February 26th the sky started lighting up over Whidbey.  After I parsed out all the images there were some unique shots.  In particular a double ground to cloud strike in the same image.

Ground to cloud strikes are fairly rare for us.  The other unique event is that the tower that was struck in the image above was struck twice.  (See Below)  I guess you could call these captures a double double....

There were several strikes.  Below is a slide show from all my cams.

All this action caught the attention of a couple of my favorite bloggers....  They provide much more detail and science about this event.

Click Here For Cliff Mass's Blog

Click Here For Scott Sistek's Blog