The rare wet weather in southwestern Idaho and southeastern Oregon produced more than 10,000 lightning strikes on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The National Weather Service office in Boise says Wednesday’s storms created nearly 6,000 strikes in its forecast area. That includes three in Oregon counties and 14 in Idaho.
One strike was caught on camera by National Weather Service Meteorologist Korri Anderson. He took the image around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday when a storm moved into the Treasure Valley.
“I was at Boise State on the Lincoln Parking garage at the very top,” he says. “I was there and noticed the lighting was going crazy. I grabbed my camera, ran up there and got one shot.”
Anderson says he snapped hundreds of pictures. This photo, he says, documents a lightning strike northwest of Boise.
“I think it [struck] behind the foothills on the other side of Bogus - around Emmett,” Anderson adds.
Anderson says weather monitoring equipment had already recorded “a lot” of lightning activity in the region by mid-morning Thursday. Forecasters are expecting more throughout the afternoon and evening.
One positive of all the strikes is that they’re coming from cells that also contain substantial rainfall. So far, new wildfire starts have been minimal.
“Most of these storms have been really wet,” Anderson says. “I definitely think it could have been a lot worse if these storms weren’t so wet.”
Copyright 2013 Boise State Public Radio