Storm

It was one helluva storm in West Toledo (Franklin Park area). It has been a while since I saw so much lightning at once; we were coming back from Detroit when the storm hit, and in the open fields of southern Michigan you could see the nearby lightning strikes clearly. Much better than a fireworks show, and some strikes were so close that the flash and sound were almost simultaneous.

A friend in the Sylvania/Jackman area lost power.

We got hammered in SW Toledo. I live in Ragan Woods and light show was awesome. My mom lives in Sylvania and she lost power again...

We got hammered just east of Ragan Woods in south toledo. The gust front was pretty strong. There was a lot of lightning. My truck bed is pretty full of water, and that is my rain guage. Thankfully no hail. I have damage from two different hail storms this year.

That was one of the worst thunderstorms I can remember in the last few years. I am near Byrne and Heatherdowns.

In regards to the big "red blob" indicating a severe storm, that isn't always the case. The higher the reflectivity colors just indicate the denser the returns in that area. If you are looking at the NWS products, the nearest radar is going to be the one in Pontiac, MI for Toledo. From that radar, the beam is still looking 5600 to 7100 ft above the surface depending on which part of the Toledo area you are. so you might get some very high returns, but that isn't always going to be representative of what is happening on the surface. Granted most times things will translate to the ground pretty well, but sometimes things won't match up.

In order to really indicate a severe storm you have to look at the other products of the radar including velocity, hail size, precip type, etc. All a big "red blob" tells me is that the objects the radar is reflecting off of is very dense. Which could be just very heavy rain, hail, debris, bugs, or birds.

It definitely did look like a tough MCS when I was watching it last night, but damage reports weren't extremely widespread. Of course they were mainly focused around the Toledo area and back to the Southwest.

The problem with the weather stations is they throw out a generic forecast and report. Meaning they generalize the whole viewing area pretty much and call for rain or sunny, the difference between just 10 miles can mean feast or famine for rain. I wonder if it were possible for them to break their viewing area into smaller sections and do more on each area and what to expect, its nice that they try to provide a service for the smaller outlying areas that dont have their own stations, but calling for rain when only the south end and further south are gonna get any is a little annoying.

In West Toledo, we had little wind, but we got a deluge of rain. That was a major toad strangler.

Local storm reports

08/04/2012 0940 PM
Maumee, Lucas County.
Thunderstorm wind damage, reported by trained spotter.
Large tree uprooted and fell on a house.

08/04/2012 0945 PM
Holland, Lucas County.
Thunderstorm wind damage, reported by trained spotter.
Large tree branch down.

08/04/2012 1000 PM
Toledo, Lucas County.
Thunderstorm wind gust e70 mph, reported by broadcast media.

08/04/2012 1000 PM
Holland, Lucas County.
Thunderstorm wind damage, reported by trained spotter.
Telephone poles down.

08/04/2012 1005 PM
Holland, Lucas County.
Thunderstorm wind damage, reported by trained spotter.
Telephone poles down.

I have 1 3/10" in the rain guage. The first 1" came in about 30 minutes last night. A few small limbs down, no major problems.

Love your tip o'the hat to the late Merle Kachenmeister jr - nice touch.

We sat out in the sunroom for over an hour last night watching the spectacular light show. Horizontal, vertical and diagonal lightning - it was amazing. It was though the storm was just parked overhead. Haven't seen one like that in a very long time.

Major Toad Strangler- that is freaking awesome.

Lightning struck a house in Moncova Two last night, just down the street from a family member's house. The racket scared the hell out of them. Yikes!

Northwood>>>We got lots of lightning and thunder last night, even took a ride out east to watch it, great show coming back as the second wave came thru over Toledo, but we got almost all of our water this morning! That was a great storm this am!

Oh yeah, and my weather radio worked great! Came on when the alert went out and shut itself off when it was over, first time I've actually seen it in action! :)

it was really fun to watch. in the OWE the lightning was going sideways for huge expanses. we've never seen anything like it.

and holy smokes did my lawn and garden love the pounding. everything is at least an inch taller today!

I just came back from "Arts in the Gardens" at Toledo Botanical Gardens and everything was so lush and colorful. You cant beat Mother Nature's rain for growing things.

It was pretty bad in Bowling Green. I was at the Wood County fair when it hit. They herded us into safety shelters, lights flickered, kids were crying and lasted several hours.

I took my girl to the concert that was supposed to start at 8 but we sat it out in the shelter till about 11:30 and the show opened around midnight. Was a heck of a night.

"Love your tip o'the hat to the late Merle Kachenmeister jr - nice touch."

I was unfamiliar with the name, so I did a search.

May 31, 2012 - Toledo Blade - Merle G. Kachenmeister, 1930-2012: Meteorologist among 1st on Toledo stations

I grew up in the heels of eastern a-hi-uh, and I heard the adults describe a heavy rainstorm as a "toad strangler." Naturally, I felt saddened and a bit confused for all the amphibians, dying a brutal death just because it rained hard.

"Lonesome Dove" author Larry McMurtry referred to such events as "turd-floaters" if that's any better ;-)