For just a fleeting moment, a shaft of the day's last sunlight streamed through a gap in clouds to the west, shining directly onto the apex of a haboob. Blasting westward through the Tucson metro area, this outflow-driven slab of dust made a miserable experience for anyone caught outside, with its choking grit and hazardously low visibility. Out here, it offered a beautiful spectacle as the … [Read more...]
State Line Sparkler
Having encountered little more than junky, non-photogenic convection farther northwest and closer to Denver, and with the next day's potential somewhere over the southern Panhandle, I had to head southeast anyway. While enroute, severe thunderstorms formed to my southeast over Baca County, and I caught up to them around sunset as they clustered up into a mess. Still, this fuzzy yet still … [Read more...]
Wild Water on the Border River
Crashing over rugged basalt cliffs, the booming churn of the Pigeon River obscures that imaginary line somewhere inside, marking the Ontario/Minnesota (Canada/U.S.) border. Seen here from the better vantage on the Canadian side, the rugged basalt cliffs and blocks rip the water into a tempestuous froth of drops, spray and wildly gyrating splashes. This paints a refreshing mental image on a hot … [Read more...]
Wall Cloud, Not Tornado!
Glancing at this still image looking northwest, with no sense of motion, one may surmise this as a ragged-looking tornado; after all, it's in about the right place: the inflow notch of a supercell, the main updraft and likely low/middle-level mesocyclone area, immediately upshear from the forward-flank tail cloud at right. In fact, it was a very slowly rotating wall cloud, mostly rising in … [Read more...]
Tucson Funnel
Surprise! While fueling up at a south Tucson gas station, I happened to glance at a nearby, ragged, high thunderstorm base through a slot between the awning and store building. Lo and behold: a nub funnel cloud appeared—rotating as a true funnel must, albeit slowly. The cyclonic, non-supercell funnel gradually lengthened into a cone and persisted for a few minutes. That was just long enough … [Read more...]
Arizona Mountain Downburst
Over the elevated plateau south of Flagstaff, numerous thunderstorms formed mostly separate from each other, but within about an hour's span. This was one, dropping a well-defined downburst into the low mountains east of Prescott. Within another hour, their growth and collective outflow had covered most of central and north-central Arizona's high country with cool, wet air, and surface … [Read more...]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 112
- 113
- 114
- 115
- 116
- …
- 413
- Next Page »