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I’ll admit it: I’m a lazy Florida chaser. Here’s the thing about Florida storms — most garden-variety Florida storms (not the rare supercells we get, mostly in winter and early spring) pop up and die within thirty minutes. FOR REAL. In the Plains, if you see a storm a hundred miles away, it might actually still be going by the time you get there. Here, it will be long gone.

The other thing about Florida is trees. Yes, a lot of the state — especially from central Florida north — is covered in trees. So even though we don’t have many hills getting in the way of our views, trees are confounding.

The best way to chase storms in Florida is to dedicate entire days to hanging out in the center of the state waiting for sea-breeze boundaries to collide and chasing whatever pops up from these and subsequent storms formed on boundary collisions. But since I’m usually working on other stuff, I don’t often have that luxury. That’s why, when a nice lightning storm or shelf cloud materializes in my area and I have enough notice and time to get to it, I’ll dash out the door and take my chances. If I actually get on a good storm, then I can be quite obsessive about squeezing every last lightning bolt out of it, but those occasions are rare.

Today was one of the good days. Hubby texted me on his way to the grocery store that there was a nice shelf cloud to the north. I wasn’t even paying attention, but WOW, was I thrilled when I went outside to look. The shelf represented an outflow boundary from storms to the north. By itself, it wasn’t violent or dangerous, but boy, was it dramatic.

My first stop was just up the river road in Rockledge, looking north toward Cocoa, where I saw a piece of the shelf cloud looming over the Indian River Lagoon. From there, I went south to the old Harvey’s citrus plant location and took some shots, then to the extreme southern end of Rockledge (the River Rocks parking lot) to let it overtake me. It was so, so beautiful, I took a ridiculous number of photographs.

A note about my photo editing: I used to be much more of a stickler for documentary photographs. I didn’t do much to enhance contrast and color, just a bit of work and a decent crop. But I’ve become more forgiving and have learned to let my creativity guide me. I’m not faking anything, but I am embracing enhancements of natural colors and bumping up clarity and contrast so you get the feeling I get when I look at the storms. I take a more artistic view. I even occasionally remove power lines (one of these photos has power lines removed, as marked).

Storm chasers have different styles when it comes to photo edits. I’ve noticed a trend toward super-dark edits. Some crank the clarity (a Lightroom/Photoshop setting) to extreme levels. I hope I strike a balance between nature and art. I was thrilled with this storm and these photos. Enjoy.

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Strong storms started early on August 13. By 1:30 p.m., when I was in Satellite Beach, a magnificent shelf cloud was bearing south.

Beachgoers took their time to leave the beach in the face of the ominous arcus cloud. I couldn’t resist waiting for it and shooting as many photos as possible, given its delicate layers.

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On July 6, this was one of those chases that materialized when, vaguely aware that a bunch of storms were forming in central Florida, I looked out the window and saw a nice shelf cloud (arcus cloud) forming. After muttering several words I can’t print here, I grabbed my camera and raced out the door to get into position.

First stop: the east end of the S.R. 520 bridge, looking back west at Cocoa. From there I went to Cocoa Beach and then Satellite Beach, marveling at how the delicate light and color of the layers in the cloud changed as it raced east toward the beach (and I hit every freaking red light in Merritt Island).

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After a difficult couple of days dealing with car issues after hitting a deer, I got a rental and did a mini-chase in Nebraska between McCook and Holbrook on May 16. I waited for middling storms to make their way to me, and they formed a beautiful if short-lived layered shelf cloud.

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Storms in Brevard County, Florida, on August 9 grew strong quickly, forming scalloped shelf clouds and dumping prodigious amounts of rain.

Rain forced me to cancel a portrait shoot, so I dashed across the Indian River Lagoon and shot the storm coming in over Cocoa, Florida, at 5:02 p.m.

I got ahead of the storms by rushing to Merritt Island and shooting back east at Cocoa, then continuing east to Cocoa Beach and ultimately Port Canaveral. 

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A line of storms formed in east-central Florida on July 14, pushing out an outflow boundary that created a beautiful striated shelf cloud.

I shot photos of it over Cocoa Village, in downtown Cocoa, and then raced east to catch it again at the Cocoa Beach Pier.

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Nature paralleled the unnatural on Wednesday, July 9, 2014, when a beautiful striated shelf cloud moved over Cocoa, Florida, the Indian River Lagoon and the bridge over the S.R. 520 Causeway. It originated from a barely-moving severe storm farther west that sent out an outflow boundary. The shelf cloud almost mirrored the curve of the bridge as it went overhead.  This was a “gentle(wo)man’s chase,” just a few miles from home, as I followed the slow-moving line of severe storms.

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I thought I had plenty of time to catch a dawdling line of storms parked over central Florida, but as it strengthened, it accelerated, and I was overtaken by the beautiful shelf cloud I was so desperately trying to catch.

I had to settle for a weaker tail-end shot after a lot of frustrating driving in the severe storm – nature’s car wash – and a video malfunction that was likely human error. Sigh. But the view from the beach was pretty.

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The beaches have been under siege here in Brevard County for the past couple of days as ominous shelf clouds have swept over the sun-worshipers and surfers, harbingers of downpours and lightning close behind. I’ve caught photos in the past couple of days at Cocoa Beach and Satellite Beach. In both places, some folks didn’t seem to be in a hurry to escape the lightning danger, which was high. I take a risk, too, when I stand on the beach to shoot a photo, and I’m well aware of it.

Today’s storm over Satellite Beach was especially beautiful. As dangerous as the lightning might have been, I couldn’t look away. See all the 2013 chase reports here.

Still need a beach read for this summer? My storm-chasing adventures, “Funnel Vision” and “Tornado Pinball,” are just $3.99 as e-books. They’re also in paperback. Check ’em out. (You can quite literally check them out of the Brevard libraries, too.)

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Boundary collisions were evident on radar the afternoon of July 21, leading to storms, but I waited until they were well under way and a severe storm warning was issued before I headed out to take a look.

I stayed ahead of a pretty but fragmented shelf cloud from Merritt Island into Cocoa Beach, Florida. Shelf clouds always seem to reach their majestic maturity when they hit the beach.

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