[dewilson58]

Originally Posted by tuccillo

There have been some studies of the impact of cities on thunderstorms but I am not sure how relevant they are to The Villages since we have a lot of green space compared to cities. Essentially, the heat island effect can enhance thunderstorms on the edges of the city depending on the prevailing wind. Variations in surface evaporation can produce enhanced convergence zones that may lead to preferred areas for convection.

I can't say I have observed what you are describing but then again I don't look at radar images all day. As you can imagine, an objective and systematic study using radar data would take some effort. Without such a study it is hard to say whether such a phenomenon is really occurring here. Is there some impact, probably. How big is it, hard to say. We had some pretty good thunderstorms come through last night around 3AM.

Full disclosure, undergraduate and graduate degrees in Atmospheric Science and wrote weather modelling codes for the Government.

Cool.
Good Full Disclosure.

I was going to answer based on standing in my front yard...........never mind.