Well, I thought that there could be something impressive coming this evening, but it never came to my mind that there could something this
violent and powerful... It got me by surprise! In next hour or so I got a dubious honor to watch how the most violent thunderstorm in maybe
50 years in this part of the country churned it's way through the Finnish country side.
When I first got somewhat good look at this baby i was very much in the middle of forest. Not so good! At that time the cloud was already
almost overhead and I could see that it
had fairly thick anvil and it was rumbling continuosly.
I got out of the woods I saw that I was somewhat North/North-West side of the storm. So the main updraft was maybe somewhat south or south-east from me and there also seemed to be some
precipitation falling between me and
the updraft base, so I couldn't see under it at all. (picture with red barn) From my viewpoint there wasn't much features what I could recognise and the color of the the cloud was
perfectly white at this point, because the sun was shining straight at it. (However one person who was observing this same spectacle
couple kilometers south from me, said that it was the most darkest cloud what he has ever seen.)
Despite of continuous rumbling the lightning seemed to be almost completely inside the cloud, I saw only few lightning bolts despite of continuous rumble.
However one CG what I observed that evening hit only 100-200 meters
away from me to the other side of the field.
Now I got also a better look at that anvil and it seemed to be a fairly thick on it's whole lenght, at least in the west side of the cloud.
This was also the moment when first got a gut feeling that
there could be something special in this storm. During those minutes in the field when I watched the storm come closer the power had gone from all near by houses.
(At this point the storm had already traveled trought at least 5 counties and made tens of millions Finnish marks damage.
It had also cut most of the roads
which were on storms path and blown apart one house,
which was under construction and caused numerous other very dangerous and life threathening situations.
However it's maybe most awesome display of power was still ahead.)
Next we got few minutes of moderate rain, hail and wind gusts. At that location the gusts were not exceptionally strong and they didn't
cut any trees, but did however permanently bend few tree tops. Closest fallen trees were situated only about 100 meters south from me. Diametre
of hails was mostly between 1 and 2cm, but some peoples near that location reported seeing also larger and much larger hails during this storm.
This rain and wind really didn't lasted more than few minutes after the sky revealed an sight, which didn't leave any questions about nature of this phenomena.
It looked like a beast and it really was that!
Only few minutes after the storm...
I was now on east side of the storm and a storm's AWESOME updraft tower was now more than clearly
visible in the west. The cell had a shape of the cylinder and it was very smooth and it wasn't leaning in any direction, but it standed straight
upward. Maybe because it's huge height (11 km or over) it looked
also VERY slim. Anvil was blowing North and there was some pricipitation visible under it while the South side of the cell was completely clear and blue sky was visible.
I have to say that when I saw this stupendous tower, I knew that something bad is happening. There just wasn't any question about it. In
Finland you just don't see this kind of monsters very often. Couple times in one life is much!
About same time when I was looking at this fabulous updraft tower the storm hit very hard in one hill only 5-10 km away from my location.
Violent downburst activity flattened the forest over this 1-2 km long hill almost completely! Width of this particular damage path was approximately from 50 to few hundreds of meters.
(I am pretty sure that many people at least here in Finland are more or less laughing at these words and maybe think that I just don't know anything about
t-storms and that I haven't seen many storms. It's maybe so, but I have been observing thunderstorms almost all my life and I have never before seen a cloud like this.
It just looked completely different from any other thundercloud what have seen in my life. It's shape was different and it looked so solid and dynamic.)
After the passage of the storm I waited maybe 10 or 15 minutes before I jumped in to my car. However I didn't went after it but I drove to nearest big field from where I could see this awesome cloud.
Later I found out that it wasn't even possible to go after it, because all roads to that direction where cut of by fallen trees and telephone lines. So in that sense I didn't lose anything....
Maybe half an hour later I saw also my first good Mammatus clouds. At his point my day seemed perfect, but there was still lot's of more lightning to come.
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