A mostly disorganized, outflow-dominant storm cluster nonetheless offered a beautiful backside finish, after I let it move over in Dalhart while eating dinner. Though lightning was scant in this area, a trailing, elevated cell's sunset double rainbow was an uncommon treat, along with sensory experiences impossible to convey through the screen, such as the comforting caress of cool outflow air … [Read more...]
Inside a Sunset Haboob
My last view of blue sky for the day was this, through deepening dust of a classical Arizona haboob that I had been pacing westward since it formed just east of Tucson. Here, just after sunset, I decided to let it pass over, and shoot through the leading edge of the outflow for the brief period (less than 30 seconds) that this strange and eerie perspective was available. These events can loft … [Read more...]
Arcus over Badlands Grasslands
Unlike the Great Western Derecho, which roared into the Badlands larger and more severe in intensity, yet more skeletal in cloud-form, this severe-thunderstorm complex had grown a well-developed shelf cloud for well over two hours and a hundred miles, and sent it careening through the gem of Great Plains national parks, to the dismay of campers and hikers. As common as raging outflow is on the … [Read more...]
Missouri Crawlers
Deeper into the evening, the fireflies calmed down, but the crawlers continued, on this atypically flat and open stretch of northern Missouri highway. After a slight lull, with only faint an intermittent flashes buried in the trailing anvil of the thunderstorm complex, the sky erupted with this brilliant display, almost blinding to the darkness-attuned eye. Many seconds after this lightning … [Read more...]
Flame Front Cooking
Our friendly little lightning-ignited prairie fire stayed well away from man-made structures, and in doing so, performed a service by reducing overgrown, dead grass to ash for enriching the soil. It's no coincidence: freshly burned areas grow greenest, especially out here and when getting enough rain (which isn't a given). The flame front, at right, must have hit an especially volatile and … [Read more...]
High Shelf
Yesterday spotting a tornado south of Midland, today viewing an arcus within a few miles of Colorado—such is the road life of the itinerant storm observer! While this "day between the days" didn't grace the viewfinder with another spectacular supercell, it gave residents of northeastern New Mexico some much-welcomed rain, and me a picturesque, congenially stormy High Plains scene … [Read more...]
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