Monsoon Thunderstorms

This is a satellite image of Southern California, with state and county borders shown in color. Courtesy of the NOAA weather site. The image was taken at 6:16PDT, not long before sunset.

It’s monsoon season in the desert southwest. We have here a scattered buildup of thunderstorms, with quite a large one over San Diego County; I can hear the thunder booming as I write this but it’s far enough away that I don’t need to turn the computer off.

Note that the clouds are mostly gray but the centers are white. That’s because they are building up to differing heights. Most of the clouds are low enough that the sun is no longer hitting them, but the centers of the storms have built up to higher altitudes and the sunlight is still lighting them up at the time this image was taken.

Nothing all that significant, I just thought the image was cool.