Archives

On the second day of my Tornado Alley sojourn, meant to get me in position for subsequent chases, I managed to catch up with a cluster of pretty storms in northwest Kansas.

The storms were, at one time, severe, but when I photographed them in a gorgeous twilight, they were simply prolific lightning producers.

Roll over a photo to see its caption, and click on any of the pictures to start a slide show of larger images.

Sometimes social obligations make it hard to chase storms, but a nasty severe storm came to me on Sunday, May 11, 2013, in Rockledge, Florida. This was a wicked line that approached Brevard County, on Florida’s east coast, from the west.

I was at a party and went outside to shoot photos of the approaching storm. The lightning became very intense as it neared, so I retreated from the home’s driveway to the alcove at the front door. Note: This is not a safe shelter from lightning, but I felt less exposed there.

I shot a little video, then switched to stills, just before a lightning bolt hit a tree just on the other side of the home’s garage. The flash and bang were instantaneous – what storm chasers call a “flang” – and it scared me thoroughly. I was lucky it didn’t hit any closer.

Afterward, I got photos of the palm tree that was damaged. There was a hole blasted in its trunk.

The storm became severe-warned and caused a lot of minor wind damage.

Roll over a photo to see its caption, and click on any of the pictures to start a slide show of larger images.

I chased a severe storm the evening of April 29 in hopes of catching a little lightning. I got lucky with this shot over Port Canaveral, Florida, with a cruise ship in the foreground. 

My Tornado Alley chase is on hold (shades of 2012) while the pattern continues to be un-May-like in the Plains. So any storms I get to see in Florida are a bonus.

Meanwhile, please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel. I’ve adopted the new layout, which better organizes my videos, and you’ll be able to keep track of my storm chases when I post new ones as I travel.

Roll over a photo to see its caption, and click on any of the pictures to start a slide show of larger images.

You’d think, as a freelancer, I’d always have some time to be in the right place during a storm. No – I’m a working stiff, too, and so I was shooting restaurant photos when the funnel clouds/waterspout were reported Friday in Brevard County, Florida. A friend called me to tell me she’d filmed a funnel in the Suntree area, and it was a beauty.  Leave it to the storm chaser to miss it …

So after my last assignment, I rushed north to Melbourne to catch the tail end of the storms as they went out to sea. The motion and structure were pretty, but I didn’t see any funnels – just a deceptive feature that was sort of the right shape, but not, as far as I could tell, the real thing. The feature, which appears to consist of condensing scud clouds, is pictured below (at right in photo). At least I got a lucky daytime lightning bolt. I definitely didn’t have “Funnel Vision” on Friday!

 
It wasn’t easy to catch the August 15 lightning in east-central Florida, as much of it was embedded in rain – or I was getting rained on, meaning it was almost impossible to get a shot without a drop on the lens. 

I got a few photos that may be of academic interest, if not as artistic as I’d like. There were technical challenges, one being that most of the bolts were embedded in rain. Another was that during the ten minutes they were really good, I was driving and stuck at Cocoa’s many stubborn traffic lights.

I headed to Port St. John, then meandered west to near the Lone Cabbage Fish Camp in west Cocoa. I got a few OK shots there, but when I was headed back east, the blob of precipitation that was heading offshore exploded with cloud-to-ground strikes when I was in no position to shoot them. Figures. I finished with a few shots in Cocoa and then along the Indian River Lagoon.

Roll over a photo to see a caption, or click on any image to start a slide show.

 
It’s always difficult adjusting to the routine of regular life when I get off the road. Storm chasing embodies freedom for me – the ability to go wherever I wish, according to nature’s whims, to follow the weather. I am totally immersed in my passion.

I love being at home, too, but my attentions are fragmented. I have to work to earn a living, acknowledge bills and deal with the drudgery that comes from basic life maintenance. (Though laundry follows me even on the road.) At least Florida offers storms in the summer, although the photo opportunities are more scant than you might think, especially for lightning.

The night of June 10, I headed out about 9 p.m. EDT in hopes of catching some lightning in a severe storm that was approaching the east-central Florida coast. Most of the bolts seemed buried in rain, and I was preparing myself for disappointment.

I decided to give it a few more minutes in case it went into anvil-crawler mode, and I was pleasantly surprised by a handful of spectacular crawlers, shot from Rockledge, Florida.

Roll over a photo to see a caption, or click on any image to start a slide show.

May 29 of this year was an example of a great storm chase that didn’t include catching a tornado. There was a brief tornado with this storm, but from my position, I didn’t see it. Nonetheless, at one point I was incredibly close to a rotating wall cloud – do I get points for proximity? No, I guess not.

 
But the real crown jewel of this chase was a few minutes of incredible structure on this supercell, which I followed with friends, then on my own, from Canton, Oklahoma, toward the Oklahoma City metro.

The night’s finale was lightning around the National Weather Service in Norman.

Roll over a photo to see a caption, or click on any image to start a slide show.

Sometimes you’re rewarded by playing the marginal setup when it comes to storm chasing. Our group opted out of the 10 percent tornado risk on Thursday, May 24, as issued by the Storm Prediction Center for Wisconsin and environs. We didn’t like the idea of chasing fast-moving storms in the trees up north.

Instead, chasing with Dave Lewison, Scott McPartland, Dayna Vettese, Brad Rousseau, and Simon Eng, we headed toward eastern Kansas.

After a lot of waiting and hanging out with cows in a sunny meadow in Garnett, Kansas, we were fortunate to catch a late-day storm that was beautifully sculpted and produced tremendous lightning, though it was never severe-warned.

Roll over a photo to see a caption, or click on any image to start a slide show.

I’ve done almost nothing but drive for the past two days – I’ve made it from Rockledge, Florida, to North Platte, Nebraska. That’s more than 1700 miles. And Tuesday, it looks like I’m headed into the Dakotas for a slight chance of severe storms … but I’m not sure if it’ll be North or South Dakota. It will depend on my sleep, my driving, and of course, my forecast in the morning.

I stopped for several minutes outside Jeanette, Arkansas, on May 20 and took some lightning photos on my way to chase storms in Tornado Alley.

On May 21, I was treated to a beautiful Kansas sunset as I drove to Nebraska. The clouds are actually blowoff from a distant storm over North Platte.

Roll over a photo to see a caption, or click on any image to start a slide show.

Storms popped up all over east-central Florida on May 7, 2012, spawning lightning and downpours, but few retained any structure or isolation for long.

Yet one storm in West Melbourne had a nice, rain-free base for a while, along with impressive lightning. The video shows its evolution.

Roll over a photo to see a caption, or click on any image to start a slide show.