Expectations of rampaging storms, marching across the Kansas High Plains in an armada of unseasonable September severity, drew us a few hundred miles northwestward. One magical sunset and some splendid nocturnal lightning kept us there. The storms developed about where and when I had expected, but stayed very small—so small in fact that several lined up in a row along the dryline. Their narrow updrafts pumped cloud material together high aloft, as if an inverted faucet spilling and dripping upward into the puddle of their collective anvil. The window of blue between two of these cells stood out beautifully against the golden, soon reddening hues of the setting sun’s light.
1 ESE Stafford KS (16 Sep 6) looking WNW
37.9566, -98.5821Blue Sky Window
Expectations of rampaging storms, marching across the Kansas High Plains in an armada of unseasonable September severity, drew us a few hundred miles northwestward. One magical sunset and some splendid nocturnal lightning kept us there. The storms developed about where and when I had expected, but stayed very small—so small in fact that several lined up in a row along the dryline. Their narrow updrafts pumped cloud material together high aloft, as if an inverted faucet spilling and dripping upward into the puddle of their collective anvil. The window of blue between two of these cells stood out beautifully against the golden, soon reddening hues of the setting sun’s light.
1 ESE Stafford KS (16 Sep 6) looking WNW
37.9566, -98.5821