Sign of a storm brewing

[Dave M.]

Below is a picture I took of the water on the Columbia a couple of hours before a lightning storm. I recognize the appearance of the water surface, nearly flat like on a beautiful day, but with a large number of very tiny waves. The water is otherwise very calm, and there is little wind. But when I see this, I know it is time to think about running for cover, there is a storm front coming through.

What I don't understand is why do these tiny waves happen? There is very little wind, but I don't know of anything else that could cause them. Do you all see something like this, or is it more of a local phenomenon? Maybe it is just me, feeling the weather change, seeing the clouds, and my mind just attributing the feeling to the water surface.

 

[fwebster]

I've never been on the water in the NW, but I'll tell you what that tells us down here in the south.

Take a look at your photo......notice the areas of clear flat water away from your boat?........ Then the disrupted are showing the little waves nearer to the boat? That indicates the gusts of wind due to the confused air patterns near a squall. If it were a real front, we would ecpect to see a ground swell in advance of the front in addition to the little chop on the surface.

Disclaimer: thats an observation from years of coastal cruising. I don't forcast weather, cure jaundice, or work on automatic transmissions.......

 

[Nehalennia]

Below is a picture I took of the water on the Columbia a couple of hours before a lightning storm.

Whats a lightning storm ? :huh:

....Disclaimer: thats an observation from years of coastal cruising. I don't forcast weather, cure jaundice, or work on automatic transmissions.......

Dang it, I had a jaundice question.

 

[Dave M.]

Thanks Frank. I will pay more attention to the areas where there are no small ripples, to see if they move around. I don't think there could be a ground swell here, I think that would be a shallow water ocean phenomenon. Water here is mostly 30 to 80 feet deep.

Todd, maybe lightning storm is bad terminology. I just meant when a lot of lightning moves through the area. I suppose it would normally be associated with a weather front moving through. It is pretty common on a day that is hotter than the previous days, and totally sunny, and little wind, that by evening lightning will be drawn into the area.

In the photo above, that is what is happening. There is almost no wind, the water is very calm except for the tiny wavelets. When I see them it is time to head for cover, so I can get off the boat in case of lightning. It moves by in cells, and you never know if you will be under one or not. Unless you can track it with radar, which I don't have. In this case, it was over an hour before I began to see cloud to cloud lightning. In the meantime I took the couple from Germany out on a short sunset tour. By the time I finally pulled out, there was cloud to ground lightning, and by the time I got home, the wind was to strong it was blowing everything around that was not nailed down.

 

[Nehalennia]

Thanks Frank. I will pay more attention to the areas where there are no small ripples, to see if they move around. I don't think there could be a ground swell here, I think that would be a shallow water ocean phenomenon. Water here is mostly 30 to 80 feet deep.

Todd, maybe lightning storm is bad terminology. I just meant when a lot of lightning moves through the area. I suppose it would normally be associated with a weather front moving through. It is pretty common on a day that is hotter than the previous days, and totally sunny, and little wind, that by evening lightning will be drawn into the area.

In the photo above, that is what is happening. There is almost no wind, the water is very calm except for the tiny wavelets. When I see them it is time to head for cover, so I can get off the boat in case of lightning. It moves by in cells, and you never know if you will be under one or not. Unless you can track it with radar, which I don't have. In this case, it was over an hour before I began to see cloud to cloud lightning. In the meantime I took the couple from Germany out on a short sunset tour. By the time I finally pulled out, there was cloud to ground lightning, and by the time I got home, the wind was to strong it was blowing everything around that was not nailed down.

Sorry Dave, I was just kidding around. We just rarely have t-storms around here. I know you get them on the eastside of the Cascades and the guys back East get them, we just don't see them hardly at all, hence my sarcastic question.

 

[DavidS]

Just for the record...Frank HAS helped me with an automatic transmission before.

 

[Dave M.]

Just for the record...Frank HAS helped me with an automatic transmission before.

And I was going to congratulate him on a good choice in not working on them!!

 

[sebagoman007]

He probly don't work on them dang furrin' caahs, though.....

Bill

 

[Nehalennia]

Ok Dave
I must have jinxed myself. Last night (early this morning-2AM) we had a pretty big thunderstorm. I couldn't believe it. Like I said before, we hardly ever get them. So when it woke me up last night I thought of this thread.

It's officially fall today. I can't believe it! It's been pouring down rain evert since the t-storm ran through.
Luckily the weather guy says we'll have high 70's to low 80's the next 10 days.

 

[AndersonAcres]

I once lived in the southern suburbs of Seattle. A thunderstorm, small by midwest standards, blew through town one day. One of the Seattle papers had a headline the next day that went something like this: "Powerful Thunderstorm Terrorizes Puget Sound".

Guess it's all relative.

 

[Asureyez]

Ripples

I'm reaching back to my rag boat days, but these ripples look to be what we called "cat paws" and are due to small surface puffs of wind caused by heat rising from the water surface ... heat is rising from the smooth oily water and the air is flowing to that local low pressure area on the water and ripples the surface as it flows to fill the low.

In light air sailing we'd have large 0.5 oz per sq yd sails to catch these puffs to move along and juimp from cat paw to cat paw.

This period is normally followed by a freshening breeze close to land as the heat rises from the land and the ripples will turn to wavelettes.

 

[Dave M.]

I will have to pay more attention to whatever puffs of wind there may be. I know the water temp at the surface was 72 F, the air temp about 100 F, and the humidity around 40-45%.