Past IEM Features tagged: lightning
Lightning delays at Kinnick
18 Sep 2022 06:23 AMWhile talking about University of Iowa football on a ISU website may get me in trouble, there was a significant weather angle to game Saturday night in Iowa City vs Nevada. The game experienced three lightning delays with the game finishing after 1 AM. These delays were due to having a strike detected within eight miles of the stadium, which then starts a 30 minute clock requiring no further strikes before play can resume. The featured chart presents the time since last strike within eight miles of Kinnick Stadium with the delays shaded on the chart. Getting the exact delay times was a challenge, so perhaps this plot will get updated later today once better timestamps can be found.
Voting:
Good: 14
Bad: 2
Tags: lightning football
Cancelled Football Game
02 Sep 2018 09:03 PMThe ISU vs South Dakota State football game got cancelled Saturday evening due to lightning. The game started on time, but was suspended shortly thereafter once lightning was detected near the stadium. The policy is for the game to resume once there has been at least 30 minutes of no lightning within 8 miles of Jack Trice Stadium. The featured chart presents the time duration since the latest lightning strike within 8 miles for the evening of the event. This analysis shows only a brief window of time just before 9 PM that this 30 minute rule requirement would have been satisfied. Otherwise, the game could have only resumed around 1 AM!
Voting:
Good: 19
Bad: 1
Abstain: 1
Tags: football lightning
Thunder Climatology
19 Apr 2012 05:57 AMNow that we are in a stormy springtime pattern, most people know that night time is best time for thunder storms in Iowa. Of course, this is also the time when most of us are trying to sleep! The featured chart presents the climatology of thunderstorm reports from the Des Moines Airport partitioned by hour of the day and week of the year. The highest frequencies are clearly during the night time hours in the spring and summer seasons. Prior to about mid April, there does not appear to be much of a night time signal with all hours of the day having about the same frequencies.
Voting:
Good: 29
Bad: 4
Tags: lightning climate
Noisy Nights
20 Sep 2010 05:55 AMNumerous rounds of thunderstorms dumped hail and heavy rainfall on primarily southern Iowa this past weekend. The featured chart presents a summary of the number of automated weather station reports of thunderstorms from the Des Moines airport sensor. The 2010 total surpasses each of the previous years since 1993. The bottom sub chart shows the hourly normalized frequency. This year has seen relatively more thunderstorms during the night time hours than previous years. This has made for a number of nights of difficult sleeping weather. More thunderstorms are in the forecast for this week.
Voting:
Good: 17
Bad: 6
Tags: climate lightning