Perhaps you slept through it (like myself), but some hefty Thunderstorms roared through our viewing area late Tuesday evening on August 5, 2008. StormTrack, our composite radar, revelas a distinct and organized line of storms streching from Ashtabula County all the way up towards Buffalo.
The red color indicates the strongest of the weather where in this shot is confined to I-90 and central Chautauqua County.

Usually we see scattered and isolated storms in the area but these storms formed due to a passing cold front....allowing for an organized line to form (not uncommon). These storms continued to push inland..so all in all, most areas in our viewing are were hit... with a good amount of rain as well. Hopefully, they didn't keep everyone up.

These are our StormTrack estimated rainfall totals. We picked up close to 1.5" inches in some locations. Officially .70" in the city of Erie estimated by National Weather Service. NW portions of Warren county received a little over 2".

The heaviest of the rain definitely stayed just a bit north as you can see approximately 3.25" up over the lake in Canada.

WHEW!!!! That's a lot of rain in one day in a short period of time...and for the time being, the average rainfall for this time of August is .12". To say the very least, we are not rain deprived.

As some may say..."If you want the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain."

Cheryl Scott,
WSEE Storm Team Weather Forecaster