Two nearly simultaneous cloud-to-ground strokes (CGs) blasted through the eastern New Mexico twilight, from a high-based band of storms, one of which spent a couple of stints as a supercell during the previous several hours. The CG at left was embedded deeper in the rain core, its brightness muted variably by differing intervening densities of rain. At right, the brighter stroke was not necessarily stronger, just a little closer and along the core’s edge. Their thunder combined into a marvelously reverberating series of booms echoing through the cold outflow air, for miles across the scrublands and shortgrass prairies. Early-evening storms with nice electrical displays such as this paradoxically have a calming, soothing effect on me, and even in a hard motel bed for the last night of the photography trip, I slept well.
2 NW Tucumcari NM (13 Aug 17) Looking NE
35.2426, -103.7868Electric Rain
Two nearly simultaneous cloud-to-ground strokes (CGs) blasted through the eastern New Mexico twilight, from a high-based band of storms, one of which spent a couple of stints as a supercell during the previous several hours. The CG at left was embedded deeper in the rain core, its brightness muted variably by differing intervening densities of rain. At right, the brighter stroke was not necessarily stronger, just a little closer and along the core’s edge. Their thunder combined into a marvelously reverberating series of booms echoing through the cold outflow air, for miles across the scrublands and shortgrass prairies. Early-evening storms with nice electrical displays such as this paradoxically have a calming, soothing effect on me, and even in a hard motel bed for the last night of the photography trip, I slept well.
2 NW Tucumcari NM (13 Aug 17) Looking NE
35.2426, -103.7868