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SEVERE STORMS IN HAMPTON ROADS, LOTS OF LIGHTNING! August 21, 2007 A hot and humid day in Hampton Roads gave way to severe storms moving westward early in the evening and into the night. As the storms approached from the west in Suffolk, I drove to the Portsmouth campus of T.C.C. where the wind came off the James River gusting to 37mph but sustained winds in the upper 20's to mid 30'smph. As the storms moved in I decided that I needed to move somewhere else as there was not much structure to get under to protect me from the rain and wind. The storms were moving westward near 30mph and before I could get onto I-664, one cell had slammed the interstate with heavy rains and an approaching core with constant lightning. As I drove into Bower's Hill lightning flew overhead several times and hit transformers to my left in Portsmouth causing an eerie green flash each time. I believe there were about 3 or 4 that were hit in about 5 minutes. I continued to drive eastward through the downtown tunnel and drove to meet Bill Coyle at the Virginia Beach Town Center. We set up as the storms pushed overhead hopping to catch the Town Center getting struck. Well, for some reason ,it never happened. Lightning flew and danced overhead but missed the tower atop the Town Center. We still walked away with some great shots. Below are the photos and a link to the video taken from Suffolk to Virginia Beach. SEVERE STORM VIDEO CLIP: Video still to come
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