Eric Thomas Weather

16/08/2025

Happy Weekend everyone! Your Saturday morning sky has the moon high in the sky passing through its third quarter phase.

12/08/2025

New World Record just established for longest lightning bolt !!!

I'm guessing you don't want to get struck by lightning... neither do I. In your mind, what do you think is a safe distance from a storm to avoid a lightning strike? Five miles? 10 miles? 15 miles? You've probably heard me recently, when talking about positive giant strikes (see posts below), which can land up to 25 miles away from the center of the storm. Well apparently you can throw all that right out the window.

Scientists recently determined from satellite data that a "megaflash" lightning bolt stretched over 515 miles from eastern Texas all the way up to Kansas City!!! It happened in October of 2017.

Here are some other lightning facts and figures for you:

Each year lightning kills 20 - 30 people, but injures hundreds more, often for life with debilitating symptoms. For comparison, tornadoes kill an average of 70 people each year.

You won't believe this one. In the US alone, how many trees are destroyed by lightning each year? Answer: 320 million !!!

What's the longest duration for a lightning flash? Half second? One second? How about over 17 seconds!!! That occured in a storm over Uruguay, Argentina.

In Zimbabwe 1975, 21 people were killed by a single lightning strike.

And here might be the craziest story of all: In Dronka, Egypt 1994, lightning struck some oil tanks which burst and flooded the town with burning oil killing 469 people!!!

Stay safe!!!

09/08/2025

In the big picture the 2025 hurricane season has been ho hum so far, but there is still plenty of time for that to change as September approaches bringing along with it the peak hurricane season.

However, the summer season across the Carolinas has been anything but ho-hum. In fact, this map shows the rainfall we have experienced over the past two weeks. Notice that blue footprint across our two states. This is a rainfall anomaly map which simply shows areas with above or below average rainfall. Many areas have received more than 6 inches over and above the typical rain you would have expected during that period. I've seen rain gauge reports of over 8 inches of rain around Raleigh/Apex just this past week alone. And none of this had a true tropical connection.

Along those lines, I haven't heard any reports, at least yet, that are comparable to the problems we had back after July 4th when tropical storm Chantal rolled up through the middle of North Carolina. Similar amounts of rain fell, but this time a state of emergency from flooding occurred around Orange County which encompassed areas from Chapel Hill northward through Hillsborough.

There were over 50 water rescues in that county alone, but not to be outdone, there were more than 80 water rescues in Durham County! Tragically six people died from this rainfall.

I know you've heard the saying turn around don't drown, well, four people were killed in their automobiles from the flooding. The other two were on a boat on Jordan Lake. Even in the absence of an active hurricane season so far, 2025 has been pretty tough on the Carolinas.

Let's hope Mother Nature takes it easy on us this Fall!

05/08/2025

30/07/2025

Eric's follow-up on last night's intense storm over uptown Charlotte as well as the airport. If you have a fear of flying, this video may not be for you.

I talk about my concerns as the storm rolled over the airport while planes were still trying to land! Get ready for an amazing nighttime time lapse!

29/07/2025

Because it is so late, I will spare you any long written or verbal commentary this time from last night's storms that punished the immediate Charlotte uptown area. The pictures speak for themselves, eh?

The shutter on my drone's camera was open for one second per picture. That's a long time by normal camera standards for daytime shots, but not unusual for low light, night shots. My point is, and I'm stunned by this, is those three huge bolts around uptown in that one shot all occurred within that one-second window.

I'm not sure I can say I've ever seen anything like that. Shots like that are typically more like 15 seconds or even longer to get multiple bolts, just crazy!!!

28/07/2025

Whoa! Areas around Indian Trail, Stallings, Weddington and beyond were pounded by wicked lightning and thunder last night around sunset. I got some spectacular shots, and this time I'll offer my commentary on camera instead of just writing out explanations. See if you like it better. Once again, I'm revisiting the mega Positive Giant lightning strikes!

16/07/2025

ABORT! ABORT! LAND NOW!!!

I took the drone up to 300 feet altitude to film the scattered downpours and just missed getting caught in one. I've never flown the drone in a downpour and would prefer not to find out how it holds up!! Phew, close call!

16/07/2025

Ok, as promised, here is the time lapse of that same storm cluster from which I captured that lightning strike in my previous post. The interesting part of this clip starts in the middle! Watch that torrential downpour just unload on uptown Charlotte through the second half of the video! It's 3am, I need to go to bed!!!

16/07/2025

Here you go! I caught this impressive strike among the cluster of storms rolling over uptown Charlotte about an hour ago... yikes!

15/07/2025

Just a few minutes ago, my drone caught this serene sunset over distant Charlotte and I thought why not pray for peace as night falls over the city in the wake of last night's deadly shooting? 🙏

14/07/2025

Since I've retired I rarely go anywhere without my camera and when I'm not posting weather pictures, I'm answering calls from real estate agents. Two of them are Bryn Rose and Kathryn Berry from Ivester Jackson Distinctive Properties and they are such fun to work with.

Enjoy this unusual lake front home on Badin Lake, about an hour and a half east of Charlotte and located at 305 Mallard Drive, Uwharrie Point. I say it's unusual because I think it's the first home I've seen with an indoor pool.

Personally, I'd want an indoor bowling alley, but I won't complain, ha!!!