Did This Video Capture Heat Leaving the Ground in Shreveport?

It Finally Happened.

The month of August finally gave us some much-needed rain which brought relief to the Ark-La-Tex. August 27th brought a summer storm that ended up knocking power out in the Ark-La-Tex.

My Friend Stepped Out to Watch the Storm and There Was Something That Caught Our Eyes.

Did we just see the heat beam up from the ground? What did we just see? Look at the video below and tell me what YOU see.

I Reached Out to Meteorologist Stephen Parr to Try and Figure Out What This Footage Actually Was.

Parr explained that yes, you can see heat waves come from the ground. "You can see heat waves rising up from the ground. That's what mirages are. When you're driving on a hot day and it looks like there's water in the roadway ahead of you, but when you get there, it's completely dry - that's because of heat rising up. There's actually a density change in the air - hot air is less dense than cooler air, which is why it rises, and that change in density bends light as light travels through the air." 

According to Parr, We Don't See a Mirage in This Video.

Parr said,  "That's not what's going on in this video, I don't think. What it looks like to me is a droplet of water on the lens is bending the light. And, since we're looking at a pretty dark image, it's fooling our eyes."

How Does a Thunderstorm Cool the Atmosphere?

Parr explained that "The way a thunderstorm cools the atmosphere isn't by sucking heat up. It's by pushing colder air down. The rain that's falling was up high enough in the sky where temperatures were below freezing. As the rain falls, it cools the air around. Sometimes, when that cold air hits the ground, it pushes out like a wave, and you'll feel a gust of cool, wet air reach you before the storm actually arrives. So, that's not the heat leaving the ground, it's the cooler air arriving at the ground."

Although I am bummed we didn't See something as epic as we thought we are so grateful for the change in temperatures that the storm brought with it.