Storm Sequence from Friday, August 21, 2009

* Heat Building: Full Forecast | Hurricane Tracking Center *

A storm moves into Tysons Corner, Aug. 21, 2009 at 2:22 p.m.

I feel fortunate that I work in a 10th floor office building in Tysons Corner when it comes to viewing storms. Last Friday, I had a very good view of the line of storms that swept across the area from west to east.

Keep reading for a photo sequence of that line of storms, shot from my office window. Also included is the associated radar loop for that day.

The radar loop from Aug. 21, 2009.

Storm clouds move towards Tysons Corner at 1:37 p.m.

Another view of the approaching clouds at 1:42 p.m.

The storm begins to move into the area at 2:18 p.m.

The storm is almost overhead at 2:21 p.m.

Rain begins to fall at 2:22 p.m.

Heavy rain and wind at 2:23 p.m.

The storm moved quickly and is over at 2:32 p.m.

Later that evening, I drove to the Netherlands Carillon to photograph the storms over Washington. I captured a nice gust front moving overhead towards D.C. and a photo with lightning illuminating the clouds. Surprisingly, there was not much lightning with the storms during the early evening. As many of us remember, however, the real lightning show came later, about 4:30 a.m., but I'm not crazy enough to get up at that hour to photograph storms.

A gust front with an approaching line of storms moves towards D.C. The fading light of sunset manages to keep the sky on the eastern horizon blue while the clouds overhead and to the west were very black.

Lightning illuminates the clouds over Washington as the storm moves east of the city.