Aside from the striking aesthetic beauty of the High Plains skyscape and landscape with this young, high-based summer storm, the lightning flash here presents a bit of a mystery. At first I thought the dark gap between bright return stroke and ground was a cellular or radio tower, or similar. When I zoomed in: no! It just stopped being bright and resided atop fainter leaders, touching ground, … [Read more...]
Blast in Trailing Precip
The trailing precipitation region of thunderstorm complexes sometimes produces tall, bright, intricately forked, cloud-to-ground lightning...like this! [I specifically didn't include "stratiform" in the phrase "trailing precipitation" because it's an unnecessary and misleading word; the precip arises not from stratiform, but convective processes!] This positively-charged discharge sent a booming … [Read more...]
Torrential Turbulence
This is a photo I shouldn't have been able to shoot. For scale, it's about a hundred feet long. Deep, murky and intensely turbulent water raced past, just downstream from wide open floodgates of Lake Texoma's dam. Only a flimsy chain-link fence here and a few easily penetrable bars there held back throngs of sightseers, some of whom stupidly dared to sit atop the bars and above this raging … [Read more...]
Mesocyclone Gaining Steam
A supercell sliding across the southeastern outskirts of Lubbock picked up a little extra moisture in its inflow region thanks to the power plant. Mind you, the amount contributed by the steam cloud was an incomprehensibly tiny, inconsequential fraction of that contained in the storm, but it still made for an interesting perspective on an otherwise wet, messy supercell. The plume made a … [Read more...]
Not So Plain View
After observing high-based, windy, wet, mostly nondescript late-afternoon storms around the Lubbock area, a couple of them assumed at least loosely supercellular character, enhancing their upward and outward cloud-mass production. That evolution just in time for me to shoot the gap between the messy supercells, blow off their very meager to zero tornado potential, and instead head to the backside … [Read more...]
On Frigid Pond
Even on a dark, cold day after a snowstorm, under a deep stratus overcast, beauty abounds in the calm and solitude of the deep chill. The trees sagged with resignation to the weight of ice that accumulated before the snow fell. Every few minutes, they seemed to groan in misery—a sound actually spawned by mechanical stresses in the ice, as winds swayed the branches. One thing is certain: loud … [Read more...]
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