Wednesday’s Thunderstorm

Wednesday night, Midland went under a severe thunderstorm warning around 10:30pm. At about 9:30pm, I had gone out to try and take some pictures of the lightning. I was able to get some pretty good pictures (as shown below), before the wind suddenly kicked up. Any, and all, loose dirt on the ground was blowing everywhere. I had been taking pictures near MCA, and so I drove under the canopy of the pickup area in front of the Grammar school building. After the top-layer of dirt and blown away, the wind stayed strong. The rain then came in about 10:55pm was when the hail started. It was pretty incredible how much came down, as well as the size. Official spotters within the city reported various sizes, including .75″ and even 1″ diameter hail.

Here are the best pictures I got of the lightning:

Here is a video that I captured with my iPhone while taking shelter under a metal shelter. The hail was deafening (as you can hear in the audio), but I was able to capture a sweet lightning strike. I would suggest turning down the volume on your computer before pressing play.

You can view the radar loop from Wednesday and see the storm really get ugly about 10pm.