• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

Baghdad: Waves of Thunderstorms (IMAGES)

Joined
Mar 3, 2004
Messages
1,143
Location
Mt Prospect, IL
What a stormy night this is, earlier we had a near miss by an intense cell to our north. A few hours later, more storms started rolling through. I was able to get pictures of some lightning, including some 4 second exposures that turned out rather well, even without a tripod. :D

Here's what happened: First, two discrete cells moved through about a half hour apart, the first one had light rain, the second one had a heavy downpour. I caught some lightning with both of these. About 25 minutes later, the entire western sky was on strobe light mode. The lightning was flashing a firey orange and red, and was illuminating what was definitely a shelf cloud. I think the reason for the color was the air quality. As it stretched from north to south, it was definitely linear in nature. It rolled through with a gust of wind and a heavy downpour. Behind the line, there was one more discrete cell. Now, all is quiet, not to say it will stay that way, lol.

I will have images of this event soon.
 
Here are just some of the images I took tonight. You can find the rest on my Photobucket page

http://photobucket.com/albums/a101/sgtdave2316/

Vidcaps and pics:

First, from the two discrete cells:
100_0163.jpg


100_0166.jpg

This one is a successful 4 second exposure without a tripod, looking straight up...
100_0168.jpg



Now the linear storms, note the shelf cloud:

100_0195.jpg


100_0200.jpg


I think I will eventually get a tripod for my weather photos, but these 4 second exposures made for some good practice for the spring.
 
Bagdad thunderstorms

I am glad that your long deployment is being made a bit more tolerable by some real convection. I discused trying to get upper air data in Iraq months ago..the best I could do was come up with GFS Forcast soundings using the NOAA's READY web site. Have you had any more luck getting access to met data, or even model output?

Do you get the impression that some of the storms you described may have been surface based, especialy the one with the shelf cloud and outflow?

Good luck and stay safe,

Glenn Rivers
 
Convection, surface based? I don't know exactly. The max T/Td yesterday was 60/55, that is some pretty moist air for a desert. There was definitely an outflow wind from the linear storms that came through, so it is possible that there was surface based convection. They were probably low topped too.

I haven't been able to find any sounding or model data however.
 
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