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Record Heat for the Intermountain West and Northern Plains; Heavy Rainfall and Severe Weather Threats

Record setting heat is expected over the next several days from the Intermountain West through the northern Plains. Furthermore, fire weather concerns increase with dry and breezy conditions. Meanwhile, heavy rainfall and severe thunderstorm threats for the Ohio/Tennessee Valleys, central Appalachians and Southeast today. The threat shifts to central Gulf Coast and across central Texas this week. Read More >

Perhaps you have heard of Crepuscular Rays...those rays of sunshine that poke through holes in cloud cover (as in the images below).

Did you know there also are Anti-Crepuscular Rays?  This phenomena occurs when low-angled sunlight gets blocked by cloud cover...and would be visible on the opposite horizon.  That is, sunrise rays would be visible in the western sky.  A thunderstorm in the vicinity of Lake Cumberland this morning, caused just such a ray.  It was visible on a webcam from WBKO over Scottsville, Kentucky.  See that image below and also the animated gif showing a loop of those images.  Below those images is a quick look of the storms that caused those rays from some different perspectives.

Tweet from Eddie Conner of what he saw of the storm and the radar imagery at the time.

First-light visible GOES-East satellite image showing the storm south of Liberty causing the shadow.

Viewing the series of storm to the south from Lexington this morning.  Image courtesy of @kyanimalguy on Twitter.

For a good webpage providing a bit more description of what these rays are, check out this NASA webpage, https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060917.html.