After witnessing the Winchester tornado, we had to scoot south several miles, east, then back north again, to avoid both the core of the supercell and a potentially tornadic mesocyclone that occupied the straightest road path. Doing so put us somewhat behind the fast-moving supercell, and also took us through a heavy shower that merged with the forward flank of the supercell. Still, we got just … [Read more...]
Cirrostratus
Thick cirrostratus seems a dismal scene to a man of lower latitudes, when framed by trees that are still leafless in April! One thing you can count on up north for nearly half the year: lots of stratiform clouds—anything gray, grim and overcast. But even the gloomy can be beautiful in a stark sort of way. Cirrostratus can be hard to judge for height, and thus difficult to distinguish from … [Read more...]
Holy Mammatus!
A field of mammatus spread overhead, beneath the anvil of an approaching, southeastward-moving supercell. The mammatus display soon would be supplemented by another supercell forming behind the first, in nice near-sunset light. The historic church is Saint Mary's, a beautiful and well-maintained little Catholic church out in a completely rural area. 8 NW Offerle KS (20 Jun 20) Looking … [Read more...]
Dusty Illinois Tornado
The first of four tornadoes we would see this memorable central Illinois outbreak day (but only shoot passable film slides of two), the Winchester event spun up a little too close for comfort after we let the expanding mesocyclone approach. The tornado developed (not "touched down"...tornadoes actually spin up!) in the field at left, as a narrow, horizontal dust jet helically whirled into the … [Read more...]
Pretornadic Winchester Wall Cloud
We headed east out of Kansas City on the first of two days off to sample a well-advertised, synoptically evident outbreak with "High Risk" outlook. That became a "Particularly Dangerous Situation" tornado watch for this area by the time we had arrived. With storms forecast to be fast-moving (and verifying that way!), we positioned well ahead of a surging, arc-shaped dryline, on the Illinois side … [Read more...]
Crawling out of the Rain
Numerous filaments of the same lightning discharge forked off a common mother leader and out of a rain core near cloud base. The pastel ambient light of the sunset hour and the reddish hue imparted by the discharge itself left a wondrous scene on the sensor of my camera, electrons of the atmospheric past, influencing electrons the screen now transfers to your retina. This storm didn't produce a … [Read more...]
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