With Jonah Pehl (Twitter: @JonahPehl)
2:15 - lightning strikes Days Inn sign across the street!
4:02 - extremely close lightning causes brief power outage!
After a tornado just barely missed this town about an hour earlier, another supercell producing multiple tornadoes was heading towards the area. We decided to stay put at this gas station as we were expecting large hail and did not want to drive west right into the storm in order to get home. The mesocyclone was likely to pass to our south, but we were ready to escape to the north if it changed course on radar or if we saw any power flashes to the SW. We ended up experiencing not much hail, but several close lightning strikes, torrential rain, and intense 60-70 mph winds in the rear flank downdraft (RFD) out of the north, which were feeding (or "sucking") into the mesocyclone to the south. A local live streamer and a couple of travelers joined us but later took shelter as the winds became intense.
This was a dangerous spot to be in and it is not recommended. Luckily, the storm did not have a tornado on the ground at the time because they tended to occlude to the north and take erratic paths on this day.
Despite the awning overhead, it was also dangerous to be standing outside of the car during a lightning storm of this intensity. We were lucky the lightning did not hit any closer.
This was part 2 of our chase from May 4, 2022. See part 1:
• Large Tornadoes near S...
Chapters:
00:00 - Tornado sirens / Intro
00:40 - Dime-sized hail
01:05 - Close lightning
04:47 - 60-70 mph RFD
08:30 - More close lightning