Jeremy Gilchrist
I chased somewhat locally in Hoke County south and east of the Moore County line into the drop zone and training grounds of Ft. Bragg. There was a rather vigorous series of severe thunderstorms that developed in the area along old boundaries from previous convection on the evening of 6/21. When I reached the Nijmegen Drop Zone off King Rd. (A large area of cleared land and a great view point) I came across what appeared to be a ragged funnel. It only last briefly but there was a wall cloud with some rotation present. The rotation was likely due to boundary interaction and a resulting localized 150m^2/s^2 helicity max in the area. This was the rain-free updraft region of a discrete cell north of Raeford, NC. The time was around 8:30pm or so. I took a few pictures and then tried to shoot lightning video at a 210fps frame rate (vids to be posted soon). The lightning was absolutely continuous and the cg's became very dangerous and intense. Cells developed in a cluster behind the discrete storm and I became embedded in torrential rains and hail to at least the size of pennies or so (couldn't verify official size with no place to stop etc. as by this time i was trying to get out). The lightning grew more intense with constant stobing and cg's hitting the ground around me every couple of seconds or so. I finally got back home just before 10pm. Below are the pics of the possible funnel/wall cloud. In one shot I caught lightning by chance and that just goes to show how frequent it was.
