May 15, 2012: Storms were vigorous and numerous today in central Florida. I saw some interesting features, including rotation on a small tower. I also caught up to a tornado-warned storm near Titusville, but I didn't see much except a lot of green color and vicious rain and lightning.
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On May 15, 2012, I caught this growing tower just south of a lightning storm that was hammering Port St. John, Florida.
It briefly exhibited rotation. The brown smudge at the bottom of the image is smoke from a lightning fire.
The structure continued to evolve.
Eventually, the tower weakened and rained itself out.
Here's a look at the rain and possibly hail, backlit by the sun.
West of I-95, as seen from near the St. Johns River, this tower over Rockledge had impressive convection.
It developed nice precipitation.
The base even briefly looked as if it had developed a wall cloud.
The rain began to fill in.
I tried to get a view of it over Lake Poinsett, but it was moving south.
Here's a skinny cloud feature with rays of sunlight over Lake Poinsett.
I followed the storm south; from Viera, I could see what looked like hail falling.
At the Viera Wetlands, this turtle didn't seem to appreciate the gully-washer that had gone through.
Pretty view of the storm from the Viera Wetlands.
The storm lost a lot of structure as the rain took over.
Another view from the Viera Wetlands.
Later, I tried to catch up with a tornado-warned storm. This is what the leading edge looked like in Titusville.
It was definitely green and turbulent. I didn't see many features as I went east and got near the radar-indicated area of rotation, but I got on the storm late in its life.