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Chase: June 7, 2012. Palmer Divide

After yesterday’s strange and incredible lightning and hail storms today was shaping up to be another severe day.  The NWS ended up putting a Tornado Watch box over the NE corner of the state at 11:00 am; it was muggy due to the moisture from yesterday and more coming that was trapped in the Front Range area due to fronts, and an upper air disturbance was passing over giving some extra lift.  Shear and helicity all looked good for supercells and potential tornadoes.

I left about 2:00 and headed east on Hwy86 as my target was Kiowa, or more like Agate/Byers area.  I wanted to sit on the north side of the divide and chase whatever fired from there.  As soon as I was past Kiowa a promising cell started to form right around Byers.  On my way there two other cells started to form to the SW–although these didn’t show up on radar they were looking really nice; but I went for the maturing cell and stopped on Hwy 36 about 10 miles east of Byers.

NOTE:  Click on any picture for an enlarged and higher resolution version (they look better larger).  For the slide shows, if you have a flash-enabled browser click on the FS link in the lower right to see a full screen, high resolution slide show!

The cell was back building and went tornado warned near Byers.  I was expecting the cell to take off and I was in good position for that; but it ended up moving south.  I then jetted toward Deer Trail and eventually to Agate and south towards Hwy 86.  I figured I could get to Simla or even Ramah if the storm continued due South where the road network gets better.

Between Deer Trail and Agate the large flat rain free base produced rotation and a funnel cloud.  It also produced some amazing texture in the anvil/downdraft of the storm!

On my way south past Agate, the front end of the storm looked very suspicious and as I was driving it looked like a tornado could be occuring.  There was a tornado reported but I didn’t know this until afterwards; but I did take this shot of the scud.

I traveled south to Hwy 86 (near where I started) and then west to the road to Simla.  I wanted to get to the road to Ramah, but there was no way without entering the core.  I traveled south until Simla and got some amazing, and I mean amazing, structure shots.  At this time there was a tornado down but I did not see anything from my vantage point.

I then headed SW of Simla and chased until near dark.  I saw a funnel which ended up being a the Calhan Tornado.  I was able to chase about a mile east of the core for a while until I decided I needed to book it south to beat the core going west on 94 into Colorado Springs.  I ended up a little slow (due to the fast developing cell on the west side of this beast) and got into some golf ball sized hail.  The cell that formed over NE Colorado Springs also put down some half dollar sized hail.

Overall, great day.  Saw two tornadoes, a ghostly mothership, and had a fantastic chase!

Chase: 6+6=12 day, Northeastern Colorado

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Finally we had a severe setup in Colorado; this spring has been mediocre at best thus far on any weather, especially severe. There was a Tornado Watch box issued for the eastern portion of Colorado and it would end up being a big hail day; especially on the Palmer Divide and Denver! I chased with Adam Boggs and we stayed pretty much out of everything severe; except the lightning. This was probably in the top 2 for sure lightning days I’ve ever experienced! It was simply spectacular!

Today was a weird day; Adam and I ran into unique events all day; which made the chase a lot of fun! The first unlikely event was when we pulled off and watched the storms track north over the Grover/Briggsdale area. Off in the distance down the road I noticed a small black dot; which appeared to be coming at us fairly quickly. I got out my 300mm lens and scoped it out, it was a dog, and he was hauling!

I’m nearly sure the dog was a stray; he was definitely a bit sketchy but did hang around us the whole time we were there. There were a TON of chasers out and he barked at every car he saw. He wasn’t very happy when we left which kinda broke my heart; but there was no way I was bringing him home nor having him in the car…something wasn’t quite right with him.

While the dog was hanging out with us; we got this timelapse of the storms to our west. There was a lowering and some minor rotation which is apparent in the timelapse; the supercell was definitely rotating which is what I was trying to capture.  One of these storms put down a brief tornado; although we didn’t see anything.

We were in the middle of nowhere when we saw what appeared to be a Chase Tour group of vans.  As we neared they beckoned us to stop and they had an issue…they had locked their keys in their car.  They were looking for a coat hanger which I didn’t have; but I went to a nearby fence post and got them some barbed wire.  Right as I was back with the wire they got the door unlocked with a car antenna and duct tape.  What was hilarious was “Plan B”…yet something else you don’t see every chase!

A bit further we stopped and watched a flock of pelicans lazily soar through the winds and also saw a cute group of deer.  Again not the average chase experience being in the middle of nowhere !

We continued on to Hwy 14 and entered the Pawnee Buttes near New Raymer and watched the storms track by and the great sunset!  We also got some more great sunset shots south of here as we were trying to make our way back to get some lightning from the southern storms.  We saw crepuscular and anti-crepuscular rays which was fairly rare (they ran horizon to horizon) and also caught a rainbow with a gas well.  The unique stuff kept coming.

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As we headed south around Orchard the lightning intensified and was hitting everywhere around us!  Another something you don’t see every chase is a group of local farmers checking out the storm with multiple lightning strikes hitting all around them and watching them scramble to their vehicles in a frenzy!  Been there, done that!

Not much further down the road, around Wiggins, we ran into a field that was on fire; likely started by lightning.  We didn’t call in any severe weather today; but we did report this fire to 911.  I ran across the street to the house there to warn them of the fire that was spreading very rapidly due to the high winds.  First time I’ve seen a field fire that close due to lightning.

The lightning was great; so we went down the road a little and took these lightning shots!  Wow!

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I dropped Adam off in Hudson where he left his car and I drove home; at this time the lightning was spectacular in Denver/Aurora area.  I decided to drive through Aurora in case there was an opportunity to photograph in the Children’s Hospital garage (my work); but even though I would have gotten more amazing shots; I was getting tired an opted to enjoy nature’s light show on my drive home without that stop; these bolts were CLOSE on the drive!   This was again an amazing storm; in the tech center there was 2-3″ of hail standing on the ground.  By the time I was in Castle Rock the outlet mall looked like it got hit with a huge snow storm.  When I got home the storm passing through SW Denver metro was Tornado warned, at 12:30 at night!  That storm dissipated by the time it was in SE Aurora!  Really?  Definitely a bunch of odd, unique stuff; and likely the best lightning day I’ve ever had chasing!

Best part, the next day even looked better for severe storms!

April 26, 2012 – Sterling supercell and Peetz lightning

Time to shake the rust off the gear and mind; it’s storm season again!  Coordinated with Adam Boggs and chased with him today.  Always great to have his custom software aboard and his excellent navigation skills.  We knew today was going to be a slight risk and that the upper level trough was not necessarily going to be timed correctly with daytime heating max; and there appeared to be somewhat of a cap in place too; but still felt there could be something worth chasing.

We met in Aurora and headed east on I-70 and then US 36; our target was around Anton area…at least to wait and see how the day progressed.  The cells in our area had a difficult time with the cap and were eroding…we decided to hit the cell about 45 minute north forming around Sterling…southern Colorado looked nice but it was more than we wanted to drive given we wanted to be back in Boulder by 2am.  Driving north on 63 was uneventful until we were about 10 miles south of I-76, and then nice looking mothership supercell appeared!  We stopped and took some photos; Adam got some great timelapse with his new nifty camera showing this mothership spin like a top!

We decided after getting about 15 minutes of timelapse to follow the storm north as it was getting close to dusk and the lightning was awesome.  Of course, as our luck would have it; as soon as we found a nice perch and got the equipment set up (and the sunlight dim enough for several second exposures) the storm died and lost its lightning!  But there were other cells just west that were producing some nice lighting and we got a couple of shots.  I love the colors around dusk so we shot some photos and the headed west to get closer to the cells producing better lightning.

We ended up in the massive wind farm just west of Peetz on the Colorado/Nebraska border and had a bolt hit the tower next to us (that was scary); we ended up driving to get out of the rain and set up in between three cells and got some great lightning shots.  Most of mine were out of focus; still getting use to the new lens I bought (focus on infinity does not work when shooting lightning and each lens has its sweet spot approaching infinity for crisp focus).  But viewing the lightning in the middle of the massive wind turbines that went on past the horizon was excellent fun!

The drive home had some wicked lightning along I-76.  Down south near Lamar were a couple of tornadoes after dark; so it was a severe day in Colorado.  We got some small hail near Brush; but that was the extent of the hail we saw.

Overall, great fun chasing with Adam, and a great start to the 2012 season with a rotating mothership supercell and some fun lightning!

NOTE:  View larger pictures (even full screen) using the option links in the lower right of the gallery below.

July 13, 2011 Parker Lightning Show

We were in a Severe Thunderstorm watch this afternoon but as I was chasing all the storms were dead before they got 30 miles east of the foothills, but there was heavy rain, slow moving storms and I knew after dark it would be a great lightning show. I triangulated a great place between a couple of storms and then drove to find a good overlook to the northern storm which was pumping out some great lightning. I had to finally leave once the bolts were a little too close for comfort, but I had a great 30-45 minute session without rain!

June 9, 2011 Adams/Morgan County Supercell

Joined up with this great storm north of Bennett. It took it a while to get going, but once it did it took on great structure. Followed this storm until its eventual demise south of Fort Morgan. Went northwest of Fort Morgan after dark to get some great lightning that this storm and others to the west were putting down.

May 26, 2010. Aurora to the boonies north of Fort Morgan.

First, here is a link to some photos, several are below… Click here to view the slideshow.

Didn’t know if I was going to chase this day as I had a meeting until 3pm likely I’d be behind all day. After walking back from another building on campus through the sprinkling rain, I saw a couple of nice towers starting to form; one just east of us and one to the north. Got back to my desk and took a look at some of the maps and imagery. Did a little work and then decided to take a break and check out the storm from the 9th floor; I’ve been wanting to do that for a while.

While up there I saw some impressive lowerings on the east side of the updraft base; but they were pretty far away–I’d estimate west of DIA. Then I saw a small scud-like cloud form, on the ground, out of the center of the rain shaft dominating the whole west side of the storm.

It was pretty far away; I’d guess 10 or miles? But the scud cloud started to rapidly rise from the ground. I then noticed a bunch of disturbances on the ground; a few were spinning. It reminded me of the water around a waterspout and I even asked the docs that stopped to look as well if there was a lake out there. I never saw a funnel or condensation tube but I’m going to chalk this one a very small rain-wrapped (for a while at least) tornado. It reminded me of the tornado I saw last year near Hoxie Kansas as both just appeared out of the rain and then dissapeared; although the Hoxie one definitely had more traditional structure. I put up some video (same zoom; from my cell phone) on facebook.

Some pictures of the chase:

It turns out Adam Boggs was directly next to this lowering and has some amazing footage of it. In his footage it didn’t appear to be rotating much either; we’ll call it a Scudnado. It was impressive structure though! Ended up hooking up with Adam on some random county road and we chased the rest of the day convoy style. This was a great chase and the storm had magnificent structure at times!

Chase: Denver Lightning July 10, 2009

This was a great night from my little perch east of Larkspur.  This storm had great structure from my location and I set up the camera on tripod taken open exposure shots of the storm.  Meanwhile, I was enjoying the show to my South East (much more lightning but much further away). 

Kristy (my sister) said that was probably the most intense lightning storm she can remembr in Denver.  As I got a lot of open exposure shots from the tripod, I decided to do another experiment with time lapse.

Click here to see the slide show.

Open Exposure, Stop Motion Lightning

I have been playing with keeping the still camera taking long exposure shots and then animating those sequentually. This day I recorded clouds/lightning about 1/2 way between Burlington and Wray on 385 on June 1, 2009.  The cloud color was outstanding as the sun went down for the evening.   The storm was moving north straight towards me so I ended up getting overrun from the storm and had to put the camera away.

View the Lightning Open Exposure Time Lapse Experiment.

Larkspur Lightning Sept 7 2009

Was just sitting at home when the sky started to light up to our west.  The lightning was numerous and appeared to be getting close so I set up the tripod on the front porch.  The images were all over-exposed so I had to mess with the aperature until I could get some not-too-bright photos. 

The storm shifted north so I put up the tripod in the back door…no way was I going outside with this storm! 

View the slideshow.