Picture by Peter Benda

An unusual major lightning/thunder event is occurring over Puget Sound, delaying the UW Husky Game.And interestingly, the UW WRF model forecast the event earlier in the day.The radar at 8:15 PM shows the action, with the red colors being very heavy precipitation within convection.The view from Husky Stadium was amazing. Good idea to get folks off the field and out of the stands.The WWLLN lightning network shows extraordinary amounts of lightning over the area. Here is the lighting totals for the 30 minutes ending 8 PM. Puget Sound is being pummeled by lightning!What is really amazing is the large number of power outages associated with the lightning (see below). Seattle's system is poorly protected from lightning because it is so rare.The convection is associated with a very sharp upper trough that is making landfall, coupled with some unusually unstable air over western Washington. Here is the upper level (500 hPa) map for 8 PM Saturday...very sharp trough making landfall.Forecasts were very good. Here is the high resolution WRF forecast initialized 5 AM this morning showing the 3-h rainfall starting 8 PM. Impressive.Here is the incredible lighting strike map for the 24 h ending 1 AM. Thousands of lighting strikes with hundreds over Seattle alone. Amazing.The tops of the thunderstorms were exceptional for around here, with some reaching 35,000 to 40,000 ft. Here is an example of the radar echo top at 8:19 PM...the top was 36,000 ft. Normally, we get excited when tops get to 20,000 ft in western Washington.