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Does it anyone have any idea why lightning would be coming from the smaller, foreground clouds in the photo? They only top out at about 8000ft, much lower than the background cloud. It was mid afternoon. There wasn't visible lightning or any thunder (that I could hear), but there was definitely electrical activity going on in those clouds. Any thoughts?
Very low freezing level I guess. I've seen shallow cumulonimbus clouds produce lightning here in winter and the tops were barely 10,000ft tall. Apparently electrification has to do with the amount of ice particles in the cloud and if freezing level is very low and updrafts are vigorous enough even shallow cumulonimbus clouds can produce lightning but usually only 1 or 2 flashes.
I guess that's possible. There was new on the mountains to the south, about 100 km away, although the nearby mountains were completely snow free at 6500ft. At the same time, it wasn't particularly cold , about 17C at mid afternoon.
They could have been stray clouds from the SE. The background cloud later turned into an early evening thunderstorm, with quite heavy showers.
There has been convective cloud around all week, which could explain the updrafts
Last edited by Joe90; 05-23-2013 at 02:00 PM..
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