Late Friday afternoon, 16 August 2024, clouds arrived as Monsoon Season kicked back in. I went to the observatory and put the Dome Cover ON as storms were in the forecasts for the next several days. That evening there were two Tornado Warnings issued for southern Arizona. One was near Kitt Peak National Observatory.

Saturday, 17 August, dawned with rainshowers in the area. Saw these small portions of a double rainbow.

At midnight a brief intense storm occurred (0.13").

Sunday, 18 August, was the 15th Anniversary of "First Light" at Cassiopeia Observatory. This video shows "The Making of Cassiopeia Observatory".

Monday, 19 August, was cloudy. Tuesday, 20 August, was mostly clear until late afternoon when thunderstorms began popping up in the area. That night there were more thunderstorms in the area with almost continuous cloud-to-cloud lightning. Received a little rain (0.03"). Wednesday, 21 August, was cloudy with storms in the area. Thursday afternoon, 22 August, a nice thunderstorm moved through (1.11" rain in 40 minutes). Friday afternoon, 23 August, another thunderstorm came through (0.5" in 18 minutes). Two hours before sunset, I did an iPhone 15 Pro Max video of a storm west of Oracle showing a lightning bolt.

Click to view video

This image is a merge of 11 frames from multiple handheld videos showing several lightning strikes about 50 minutes before sunset.

Click or tap on image for larger version

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