After a great day of Devils Tower photography, storm observing and good food, we headed out of Newcastle in search of a wonderful Wyoming sunset. It found us here. An isolated, elevated thunderstorm formed to our SW behind the earlier complex and moved eastward, intercepting the lowering rays of sunlight as it dissipated. A faint secondary rainbow formed to the right of the main one, and a nice … [Read more...]
Yellowstone Mudpot Freeze-Frame
The Fountain Paint Pots at Yellowstone, along with the Hverir mudpots in Iceland, are two of the most consistently outstanding formations of their kind in the world. Magma a short distance underground heats water to beyond the boiling point, but it stays liquid due to pressure. In both cases, nearby geysers vent much of that water through outburst fountains, but some of the water travels through … [Read more...]
Hole Puncher
Even on the periphery of a tornado, or in one of its weaker phases, flying debris remains a major danger. A night tornado on 26 April 1991 launched a chunk of unknown debris ("missile" in damage-survey parlance) through the brick veneer of the Oologah (OK) High School gym. Gymnasiums are inherently unsafe in a tornado anyway because of weak support for large-span roofs; but this illustrates an … [Read more...]
Yellowstone Morning Fogs
On a cold Yellowstone dawn, two fog sources blended to form an enchantingly eerie and ethereal scene: ground fog from the previous day's heavy rains and condensed steam risen out of geothermal vents. For about an hour, an area of several square miles around the park's western geyser basins resembled a giant version of the stages and fun houses that use dry ice to create chaotically dancing and … [Read more...]
It’s BeHIND You!
Driving southward past the west side of a supercell, out in the rain-free area just behind the storm, we were hearing tornado reports but couldn't see it buried in the storm's murky precipitation shield to our left. While crossing a creek valley, this—the dying tail end of the tornado being reported—emerged back to our northeast, off port stern. The snakelike funnel had quickly popped out of the … [Read more...]
Last-Gasp Circulation
A tail cloud, clear slot and ragged area of rotation marked the final wall cloud of the last in series of supercells we would intercept on this day. The old, deeply occluded mesocyclone responsible for this wall cloud seemed to be running on fumes, with cool air in its inflow region. Among other events of years past, we learned from a photogenic tornado a couple of hours before not to dismiss … [Read more...]
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