Those who experienced the lightning and thunder the past couple days and nights may have noticed it seemed unusually loud. that’s because it was. It probably also “rumbled” a little more than usual as well.

It’s all thanks to our old friend or nemesis “The Wedge” aka CAD, which always involves a temperature inversion in the atmosphere.

Typically the air gets colder as you go up in altitude. But in an inversion the temperature profile is upside down or inverted. 

WCNC graphic.

You can see the temperature inversion in the thermodynamic diagram radiosonde (weather balloon) trace below. The green and red line started at 42F but rise to around 59F several thousand feet up (line slants from left to right):

The Wedge is plain to see in the Stu Ostro graphic using EPT at the surface and the “warm nose” aloft resulting in the inversion:

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