This was the shortest distance I've covered on any tornado intercept to date, yet it was one of the most difficult. Driving through a hilly and forested part of eastern Oklahoma City's suburbs, in attempt to at least keep astern of a fast moving storm, we had to stop at no fewer than 90% of possible traffic signals enroute. With daylight fading, that frustrating entanglement cost us any hope of … [Read more...]
Southern Sky Mammatus
As if offering visually soothing condolences, the atmosphere rewarded the eyes with a briefly but brilliantly illuminated mammatus field, at the end of an otherwise long and rather frustrating storm-intercept day. A sky profusely festooned with champagne-toned cloud protuberances took the edge off and made the short drive back to Norman a little more tolerable. 3 SSW Watonga OK (18 May 17) … [Read more...]
Newly Glaciated Cb, Sedona
The processes responsible for this seemingly innocuous little cumulonimbus, so young and frail in appearance, led indirectly to a photogenic downburst, a beautiful sunset and lightning over eight hours later and 150 miles to the west. What caused all those dominoes to fall? The answer is in our fascinating and active atmosphere. More such storms would form in the high country between Sedona and … [Read more...]
Desert Mountain Crawler
Following a pleasant sunset, time exposure maximizes both ambient, dim twilight and the reflected glow of in-cloud flashes, the combination casting an eerie light across the rugged western Arizona landscape near the Colorado River and Nevada line. A single cloud-to-air "crawler" discharge illuminates the background sky and punctuates the middle of the scene nicely. I stayed in the vehicle for … [Read more...]
Sunset through Desert Rain
Desert thunderstorms were rather scant for my summer 2017 monsoonal trek, but not absent entirely! Sunset light painted the underside of a convective cloud shield that sporadically spit sparks across the distant desert landscape, as at far right. This was a pleasant way to supplement the storm day, after photographing downbursts and other outflow-dominant features a few miles closer to the … [Read more...]
Storm Shadow on Volcanoes
A wet winter and spring left northeast New Mexico's volcanic plains thickly upholstered in verdant grasses, some of which already were ripening by early June. As the partly cloudy forenoon hours quickly yielded to orographically forced thunderstorms of midday, and their anvil canopies spread above the land, light and shadow became both more subtle and deeper at the same time, shifting slowly … [Read more...]
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