Thunderstorms

A 9-year-old girl was killed and her 8-year-old playmate injured by a lightning strike in Southwest Baltimore yesterday as soaring temperatures gave way to a series of thunderstorms.The dead girl was identified by staff at St. Agnes HealthCare as Kassi Burton, a fourth-grader at Rognel Heights Elementary School who lived in the 800 block of N. Woodington Road, in the Edmondson Village area.The 8-year-old, identified by hospital officials as Stacey Gaskins, also of North Woodington Road, was taken to the pediatric intensive care unit of Johns Hopkins Hospital shortly after 7 p.m.She was listed in good condition last night.

BROOMES ISLAND -- Rough weather and a burst of algae growth dampened visibility, but not spirits, at the 11th annual "sneaker test" of water quality in the Patuxent River.Former Democratic state Sen. Bernie Fowler checked the river's clarity by wading in, hand in hand with dignitaries and squealing schoolchildren. Fowler lost sight of his toes and stopped at 35 1/2 inches deep -- not as good as last year's 44 1/2 inches, but better than average for the unscientific test.Rain and warm weather have fueled an algae bloom, marine scientists said.

Thermometers at Baltimore-Washington International airport broke the century mark yesterday for the first time this year with a record-breaking 101-degree official reading that brought misery and unhealthful conditions for plants, animals and humans alike.Today will bring more of the same, and scattered thunderstorms predicted for late tonight are expected to provide scant relief."It's going to be a scorcher for sure," said meteorologist Bill Romine at Weather Central in Madison, Wis. "The hot, humid, sticky and muggy temperatures won't stop until Monday or Tuesday."

A band of thunderstorms swept through Maryland last night, downing utility lines and knocking out power to 14,000 homes throughout the Baltimore metropolitan area, including 6,100 in Harford County, the hardest hit subdivision.A cool air mass moved into the area about 7 p.m., bringing isolated thundershowers. A lot of lightning occurred, but little rainfall, said Andrew Woodcock, a National Weather Service meteorologist.The storms did not bring sufficient rain to help the state's drought-stricken farmers.

An afternoon thunderstorm yesterday dropped more than 3 inches of rain on parts of Harford County, caused some flooding and mudslides that closed several roads and knocked out traffic lights in the northern county."

It's nighttime in the Catskills resort area in New York, and the jokes are flying."Jewish guy walks into a bar ""Italian guy walks into a bar "Equal-opportunity insults -- badda bing, badda boom.After all, there's nothing like a good zinger at your expense to make you feel you really belong. And if a punch line sometimes falls flat in these politically correct times, well, maybe you should forgive the comedian the way you do foolish Uncle Marty after he's had a few drinks. Because here in the mountains, everyone is family.

A powerful tornado tore through Carroll County yesterday, damaging 48 homes and downing trees and power lines in a terrifying few moments in which two small children were swept out of a window.About 30 homes were severely damaged, but no one was seriously hurt. The two children, a 2-year-old and his 4-month-old brother, were in stable condition last night at the Johns Hopkins Children Center in Baltimore.The boys, who were not identified, suffered minor injuries, according to hospital spokesman Jack Sheehan.

A series of thunderstorms battered parts of the Baltimore area last night, flooding streets and basements, downing trees and trapping motorists.Northeastern and eastern Baltimore City and from Pikesville to White Marsh in Baltimore County appeared to be the areas hardest hit.Police and firefighters responded to calls from stranded motorists and for flooded basements and downed trees that threatened power lines."

A series of slow-moving "train effect" thunderstorms that dump up to 2 inches of rain per hour have pounded Central Maryland this week, saturating the ground and flooding streets and basements.The volatile conditions producing those storms -- a weak cool front to the north colliding with warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico -- will be here the rest of the week, meaning a repeat of the torrential downpours, rain and lightning could be in the offing."We expect more widespread showers and thunderstorms over the next several days, and we may have a tropical storm on the horizon," said Barry Goldsmith, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Sterling, Va.The first tropical depression of the Atlantic hurricane season was moving over ocean waters off South Carolina yesterday.

The county used reserve tanks to supply water to Freedom District residents over the weekend because the flow from Liberty reservoir was too much for the county's 2.1 million-gallon-a-day filtering system to handle.Torrential rains that swamped roads and flooded many areas in the western part of the county last week "created a lot of disturbance in Liberty Lake," said county utilities chief Wayne Lewns.The 17-acre, 90-foot-deep lake is a reservoir for Baltimore, Carroll and Howard counties and Baltimore City.

Donald Gansauer in Canton hears "a lot of static on WBJC on occasional evenings. What is it about the atmosphere that causes AM/FM radio reception to go bad?" AM signals are vulnerable to electrical discharge (lightning) in thunderstorms. On FM, temperature inversions (warm air trapped above cold) can bend radio waves, causing interference. It's more common in cities, or near large bodies of water.

As Marylanders slosh through their third straight month of rainy weather, the state's mosquito control chief says we have more to worry about than gloomy skies and spoiled picnics. Mosquito populations have exploded, and they're looking for blood. "This could very well be the worst year we have had in a couple of decades if this rainfall pattern keeps up," said Mike Cantwell, chief of the Maryland Department of Agriculture's mosquito control division. His crews measure mosquito populations by counting how many land on their arms in a minute.

Jeff Brauner in Baltimore asks "what actually converges" in the intertropical convergence zone where Air France Flight 447 went down. He wonders if it's safe to fly there. Northeast trade winds above the equator and southeast trades south of the line converge in the ITCZ. They force warm, humid air skyward, forming equatorial thunderstorms. There's normally little risk to modern airliners.

As if near-record rains in May were not enough, Maryland received a fresh June soaking overnight that threatened to continue today. "I'd say there's a ... good chance of seeing another inch or so, and by [tonight], another half-inch is possible," said meteorologist Andrew Ansorge at Penn State Weather Communications. Some spots could see as much as 2 more inches of rain before it ends. With soils saturated and streams high as a result of more than 7 inches of surplus rain in recent weeks, forecasters said it would not take much to flood low-lying roadways and send rivers and creeks over their banks.

Forecasters say there's a good chance thunderstorms will water the Preakness this evening. But the rain could hardly compare with the weather in Baltimore the last time a filly won the race. Nellie Morse ran and won in 1924 in what The Sun described as "six inches of waffle batter. It was as much a regatta as a horse-race." Her owner predicted she would win "in a walk, or shall we say, a breast-stroke."

This gig's easier with Donald Gansauer's questions from Canton: "Television weathermen say that we have the potential for thunderstorms because of an ' unstable' atmosphere. What makes the atmosphere unstable?" It's sharp temperature contrasts with altitude. Sunshine heats air at the surface, causing it to rise through colder air aloft. The rising warm air expands and cools. If the surrounding air aloft is no cooler, the updraft stops. Stable air. If it's still colder, the updraft continues, forming tall, cumulous clouds and thunderstorms.

The Atlantic hurricane season ends today. Emily Johnston of Westminster writes: "What is the difference between a hurricane, typhoon, cyclone and tornado? Is [it] ... semantic, or is there a meteorological basis for the ... terms?" Hurricane and typhoon are regional names for "tropical cyclones" -storms that form over warm oceans. They're hurricanes in the Atlantic and the eastern Pacific, typhoons in the northwest Pacific. Tornadoes, pipsqueaks by comparison, are spawned by rotating air in thunderstorms.

A Princeton study of Baltimore thunderstorms finds that the density of cloud-to-ground lightning strikes here peaks at nearly 10 strikes per square kilometer in late June and early July, between 5 and 6 p.m. The highest densities occur south and east of Baltimore. Urban "heat islands" and bay breezes stoke our electrical storms. Dense lightning is associated with flash floods, and Moores Run in Northeast Baltimore has one of the highest frequencies of flash flooding in the U.S. Who knew?

Ken Lagace of Baltimore recently heard someone mention heat lightning. "I haven't heard that in over 30 years. What happened to heat lightning?" he asks. Lots of us remember sitting outside on hot summer nights, watching the horizon flicker, silently and mysteriously. We called it "heat lightning" because it was oddly silent, and we saw it mostly on hot nights. But it's not a special kind of lightning, merely lightning flashes reflected from distant thunderstorms. A clap of thunder just doesn't travel much more than 10 miles.

A swirling mass of thunderstorms moved southeast across Maryland last night, bringing down power lines and trees, and dropping hail in some spots. Despite warnings, no tornadoes were reported. Lightning struck a home in the Parkton area about 5:40 p.m. and a Brooklyn house about five minutes later, fire officials said, but no injuries were reported. About 5,500 BGE customers were without power about 9 p.m., with as many as 1,000 out in Essex and Elkridge. The National Weather Service issued the first tornado warnings for Harford and Baltimore counties just before 5 p.m., when Doppler radar indicated rotation in the approaching thunderstorm.