At deep zoom, a delightfully complex cloud mix and landscape below combined to compose a unique sunset scene in the southwestern New Mexico desert. The last of the day's storms in the region had died away a couple hours before, leaving convective detritus, comfortably cool outflow, and disappointment at lack of lightning-shooting opportunities in the sunset light and beyond. However, that sense … [Read more...]
Grand Canyon, Electrified
Several minutes deeper into twilight, and following a singular, loud blast into one of the Grand Canyon's natural amphitheaters, the increasingly dense rain core and surrounding terrain lit up with another cloud-to-ground discharge into the canyon. This delicate yet dangerous beauty had a bonus: a cloud-to-air flash above that was nearly parallel for about half the visible distance before … [Read more...]
New Mexico Mountain Multicell
A late-season cold front and its easterly boundary-layer flow helped to move moisture from Gulf of Mexico through the gaps in mountains of west Texas and southern New Mexico, kickstarting the southwestern desert "monsoon" season a bit early, as June spilled into July. After an essentially nonexistent wet season in 2020, 2021 would offer a long and productive summer of convection in New Mexico … [Read more...]
Three-Spark Boomer
Within just a few seconds, three CGs popped the countryside along the New Mexico/Oklahoma state line. The orientation of these flashes ensured a long report of thunder, as the nearest one sounded first, followed by the one behind it, then the one at left, all in a continuous cacophony of rumbles and booms across those High Plains. The southeastward-moving storm had a peculiar tendency to stay … [Read more...]
Occlusion Attention: Part 3
Getting ever more concerned that something tornadic was happening in the old, bent-back occlusion, I pulled out the zoom camera and started looking through its viewfinder, shooting, looking at the LCD, and looking directly with eyeballs. All this effort and attention yielded strong suspicion, but never enough confidence and evidence to say yes, that's a tornado. Some storms are just too chaotic … [Read more...]
Occlusion Attention: Part 2
After this supercell's forward-flank core and rain foot shifted northward enough to see the rotating, deeply occluded wall cloud in the distance, I tried to pay very close attention to the area under it, while not losing track of the closer, main updraft base (also rotating, but very slowly at this point). The slightly higher terrain, upon which the wind turbines sat, didn't help, nor did the … [Read more...]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 110
- 111
- 112
- 113
- 114
- …
- 413
- Next Page »