Being in the passenger seat for once, I was able to get an "action photo" of a small tornado truly being pursued -- novel (for me anyway), but not optimal positioning for a supercell that already produced one tornado and was racing eastward at 50 mph. Unlike us, it didn't have to obey traffic laws nor follow curves and zigzags in the road. Needless to say, as with the first and much longer-lived … [Read more...]
Little Spinup under Large Wall Cloud
The supercell took a good bit of time to get organized along a boundary it was riding, but this signaled it was ready to rock and roll. The inflow-region (left) and forward-flank tail clouds were both strongly convective and converging rapidly inward toward the wall cloud at center -- something I like to see for overall low-level storm strength. Moreover, rotation in the wall cloud in the middle … [Read more...]
Osage Boomer
Out on the lonesome prairies of Oklahoma's little piece of the Flint Hills, in central Osage County, the back side of a slowly shriveling, formerly tornadic supercell blasted a few final flashes for the dwindling storm-observing crowds. Curiously, the CG action was in a place I don't often see it, the near backside of the mesocyclonic hook, here mostly rain-wrapped but nowhere nearly as intense … [Read more...]
There, in the Distance
At first, this may just look like moist, hazy, low-light/twilight murk, with just the faintest hints of sunset light still remaining at lower right. For much of my time attempting to observe this storm, it was. Still, it offers a valuable spotting lesson in this day and age of onboard data: know where the mesocyclone is, and how it is moving, and stay focused on it. I had left a bit late … [Read more...]
Toppled, Crumpled Power Tower
We examined this intense damage from a high-end severe thunderstorm before, as another, far weaker one spread an anvil across the sky from off-screen right to left. This high-tension power-line tower oonce helped to transport electricity from the wind farm in the distant left background. Instead, just over a week earlier, a bowing thunderstorm cluster with two separate 131-mph gust measurements … [Read more...]
Abstract Reality
Cloud windows are some of my favorite photography targets, whether near sunset or before, from ground or air, colorful or somber in hue. Being fluid, every one is as unique as its combination of place and time, never to be precisely duplicated. This one, just post-sunset, was so brilliantly cast against a dark foreground that in a deep zoom, it assumed the form of an abstract painting, yet was … [Read more...]
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