Late May Storm

Posted on June 8, 2016 by davealex

There have been several great stormy days here in Colorado in early May; but my schedule has prevented me from chasing on those good days. I’ve been itching to get out; and luckily we had a good day before we left for our family vacation!

My son and I got an opportunity to head out on May 26th. We targeted Limon and decided we’d then go where the storms popped up as the forecast was difficult. The storms fired along the Colorado front range early in the day; and put down some hail, but those storms were moving due north and had already formed a line; so we punched through and continued to our target. Once in Limon, we saw some development to the south and headed that way to check them out.

The weather was strange, it was pretty chilly (about 52 degrees) and nothing was going up discreet. We stopped at the first storm and noted a wall cloud feature on a storm, so we watched it. It did have a little rotation; but just as it was looking good the inflow got cut off and the storm turned into a massive rainy mess. So we left it and headed Southeast towards the front end of the cells.

Early wall cloud, temp was about 50 degrees.

Early wall cloud, temp was about 51 degrees.

A small amount of rotation as this wall cloud continued

We were able to see a small, short lived funnel near Wild Horse and as we were heading south towards some great looking structure near Kit Carson the storm overtook us. There was a tornado spotted from this cell but traffic was pretty hairy and we ended up abandoning that storm and heading north. We saw some great lightning, Hunter actually saw a positive bolt from the top of a tower which is great; I’ve never seen one of those. By the time we got north of I-70, the front edge of the storms were all out by the Kansas border, and we decided to not pursue those into Kansas and instead just watch the remaining daytime lightning south of Yuma and then head home.

A funnel was forming; I rushed back to the car to ensure Hunter could see it; but by then it had dissipated. It went about 1/2 way to the ground, but was just a small finger.

Here a funnel was forming, but I didn’t get a shot of it as it was 1/2 way to the ground as I was rushing back to the car to ensure Hunter saw it! It lasted for just a minute or two; but the coulds were all active in this area.

Interesting structure as the storm overtook us

The Aroya historic school house was in use until the early 1960s.

The greens are beautiful this time of year!

South of Yuma we caught up to the last lightning of the evening. We parked next to a grain bin and under these power lines; ended up getting some great day lightning photos; I was holding the camera by hand and was surprised this technique actually worked as it wasn’t dark yet!

Autumn Larkspur Lightning

Posted on October 20, 2015 by davealex

As a large trough comes digging into Colorado bringing much cooler fall weather, we were treated with some autumn thunderstorms and lightning. I was able to capture some of these bolts during the heavy rain inside my car. All were taken with the camera hand-held, so focus on a couple is a bit blurry; but overall pretty good given the proximity, the amount of rain, and the varied distances.

These first few were directly overhead so I was only able to capture parts; not the whole bolt.

As the storm slowly moved north, I was able to readjust the vehicle and focus; a couple were a little closer than I was expecting so the focus was a bit out, but overall not too bad especially for hand-holding the camera. Focus is difficult with lightning every time!

Monsoon Lightning Begins

Posted on August 10, 2015 by davealex

The monsoon is picking up, several weeks later than normal, but it is here. Woke up to some thunder so I checked out the radar and sky and decided to take a small drive. Ended up a few blocks away from the house and was able to capture some nice lightning. The storm down SE of us was going bonkers with lightning, strobe light style, so I ended up driving south a ways to an overlook and watched. There were no bolts visible from my vantage point (the storm was 40 miles away) so I just sat in awe for a while and then headed home. Tomorrow night should be another good night, and we have the Perseids upcoming too, so probably will be lacking a bit on sleep this week!

June 6 Chase :: Severe Storms over Eastern Colorado

Posted on June 6, 2015 by davealex

For the forth day in row the atmosphere was primed for severe storms over eastern Colorado. I got an early start and did the standard thing it seems…catch the first storm that popped up on the Palmer Divide. That was a storm that went just north of Elizabeth following the same patterns as many previous days. This storm would prove to be the storm of the day, tornado warned, and surrounded by chasers all the way into Kansas.

SW of Bennett as this storm was getting organized

The temps were in the low 60s and the clouds were pretty high based. Looking at the surface map further out on the plains was 75/55 and in some places 80/55, so I opted to split the difference between Last Chance and Brush to hit whatever storms seems to be using the more unstable air.

My mind always plays tricks on me. This looked like a baby elephant cloud.

The southern storm just didn’t look good to me, and it was forming in the cooler air, so I opted to head to the cell popping up SW of Fort Morgan. As I arrived it was tornado warned, of course about 10 minutes after the southern storm was also TVS warned. The Fort Morgan storm was very high based and appeared to line out rather quickly. I left it and tried to catch up with the southern storm that was along I-70 approaching Seibert.

Tornado Warned storm over Fort Morgan. Trained Spotters saw a funnel.

The southern cell appeared to be hitting the cap and was dissipating quickly, and the convection looked like mush which I’ve never had much luck with approaching Kansas (I like to see rock-hard popcorn type convection in the towers). I still had a ways to catch up to it so I opted to head for the new storm that was forming SE of Limon.

This storm was heading east of Limon when the larger cell started to loose its convection.

I headed south out of Cope and nearing Seibert I pulled over to check out some of the structure of the approaching storm. The radar showed this complex as a line of storms so I knew it probably wasn’t going to do anything severe (perhaps hail or wind), so I just decided to absorb the structure as it approached.

Looking SW from near Cope, Colorado.

This storm was lined out making an Arcus roll cloud

Some nice striations in the clouds

Just north of Seibert I stopped to check out this arcus roll cloud which was really neat. These clouds are similar to shelf clouds but are detached from the cloud base.

Arcus Roll Cloud

Heading back home I got to see some neat rainbows and dying cell structure while passing the Limon wind farm, which I always love to drive past/through. All-in-all a fun chase day!

Bright double rainbow in Limon

Limon storm at sunset

Arcus Roll cloud north of Seibert.

June 5th Chase

Posted on June 5, 2015 by davealex

Today was the third day in a row that the Colorado Front Range had a tornado watch issued. I left a little late due to a work meeting (who schedules meetings in the afternoons during storm season, how rude! 🙂 ) and headed up to follow the second cell that was tornado warned near Parker. Caught some great storm structure and had a fun time with this storm as it went in and out of tornado warned status. Once again, more Palmer Divide magic!

Double tail clouds!

Cell east of Byers as it got going again. Awesome watching the tail clouds form and pass overhead!

Tornado warned at this time.

This was cool as the outflow was getting sucked up into the cloud.

On the way home I caught the cells that were forming off of the Rampart Range west of Castle Rock to get some lightning shots. Unfortunately it was raining anywhere near the storm, so I shot some distant photos near Castlewood Canyon, still caught some great lightning. It produces much better photos closer to the strikes, however; but there are still months of storms to catch great lightning shots.

This appears to be a small shear funnel on the right side of this storm looking north from Castle Rock

Lightning over the Pinery

Been a fun June chasing so far! Look forward to more days this spring!

June 4 Tornadic Supercells

Posted on June 5, 2015 by davealex

Today had another round of severe weather for the Colorado Front Range including Tornadic Supercells. I left work a bit late today due to a pending deadline so I was behind the 8-ball all day, but still was able to see some really neat storm structure.

Storms had already gone severe warned by the time I left work so I had a good idea which one to jump on. I was targeting the storm just west of Limon as I was heading east on I-70 and then the cell near Leader was just too impressive and I had to check it out. This is common with me when chasing as my favorite part is the storm structure and not strictly tornadoes which is the focus for many chasers.

Here is the supercell as I was passing it on the interstate as it was near Leader

Awesome storm structure as this cell was tornado warned.

As I approached this storm is was obvious it was getting smaller, both on radar and visibly to my eye. It didn’t matter though, the inflow band and what I could see of the updraft were spectacular! Within 30 minutes this storm went from Tornado warned to non-existent!

Awesome structure just east of Byers, however the storm is dying

Watching this supercell dwindle into nothing in less than 30 minutes!

So back onto my originally targeted strom. I made a few tactical mistakes that cost some time today–miss my chase partner Adam who was excellent at it–and ended up taking a few roads I have not done before. Due to the amount of rain the dirt roads were mud and somewhat slick so it was slow going. Sometime the shortest route is not the best route! 🙂 Meanwhile this supercell was putting down beautiful tornadoes with amazing structure. Here is what it looked like from the back (north) side (it was moving south) which is a typical view as you are approaching a storm from this perspective!

Getting back onto my primary target, it has been producing tornadoes by this time.

But perseverance pays off! I finally got on this storm a little before sunset. It had already stopped producing tornadoes although I thought there was one more left in it…but it didn’t have quite enough energy even though the mesocyclone was spinning like a top! The structure was jaw dropping, with a visibly rotating barberpole updraft. And there were no other chasers in this location when I arrived (a treat from days like yesterday where there were 100’s of chasers converged in the same area). Ended up being 4 chaser teams in my area, and we all got an amazing display from mother nature!!!

Finally caught up with this supercell. Amazing structure near Kutch.

Lucky daytime lightning caught.

As the sun started to set, the energy dwindled and the inflow started to fizzle out. The tail cloud that formed made me thing it was going to produce another tornado in front of me, but it was just a little too late for that to happen.

Nice helix barberpole inflow just before its death.

Amazing, colorful sunset

Nice display of Mammatus Clouds at sunset

On the way home Denver had a large severe warned cell stalled over it. On the radio they were talking about the mass amounts of hail and continuous lightning. The storm stretched the entire metro area so I jumped up to a spot I’ve been wanting to photograph lightning from near Parker and took a few shots. The lightning was incredible but it was 98% cloud-cloud and only small spikes were coming out of the cloud in this one location. Great to watch for about 20 minutes before I ended up heading home.

All-in-all, an amazing chase day, the structure of the Kutch supercell is one I will never forget!

SW Denver lightning, continuous lightning!!

Awesome lightning display over Denver

June 3, 2015. Douglas / Elbert County Colorado Supercells

Posted on June 3, 2015 by davealex

Today the National Weather Service issued an enhanced risk of severe storms for Central and Northern Colorado, likely having Colorado Supercells on the menu! My original thought was to wait near Prospect Valley and either hit the storms coming off of the Palmer Divide, or head into Northeast Colorado if the cells fired there. A tried and tested strategy, and it worked once again today.

Larkspur supercell as seen north of Kiowa.

Larkspur supercell as it went through Castle Rock and Franktown.

I was in Bennett at about 2:30pm when the first cell fired up. Because I was nowhere near home, the cell was over Larkspur put down quarter sized hail. But this storm was the only play thus far in a good atmospheric environment and given the cap was strong I decided to head south towards Elizabeth and cut off this slow moving storm. I ended up finding a nice location a couple miles south of Elizabeth and set up the camera for a time lapse. The Larkspur storm slowly moved NE but it wasn’t tightening up and was obvious that it probably would only produce hail. It ended up completely vanishing within about 30 minutes near Kiowa.

Elizabeth supercell showing some interesting formations

Second supercell as it entered Elizabeth.

Meanwhile, the cells behind this supercell merged and took a right turn. This was an amazing looking cell and I watched it from Elizabeth, then Kiowa. But like its earlier friend it couldn’t withstand the cap and environment east of Kiowa and quickly died. The good news is that for my second chase of the season I was home by 9pm, a rare occasion on chase day!

Kiowa supercell as seen east of town.

Kiowa supercell showing some interesting scud formations

Aurora supercell as seen from Hwy 86 near Elizabeth as I was heading home.

Castle Rock clouds as seen from Hwy 86 near Elizabeth as I was heading home.

Chase: SE Colorado, May 23 2015

Posted on May 23, 2015 by davealex

Did some storm chasing today. Setup was marginal but I had the day open and been wanting to chase all year, so I committed to SE Colorado. Left the house about noon and already storms were starting to fire. The best storms were three cells near La Junta, one which put down a brief tornado. These are the storms I wanted to be on, but to get there I needed to core punch the top of the line of storms, then once in front of the line head south to get the southern part of the linear cluster coming right at me.

Ended up succeeding in the plan, catching some good structure, but not great. Nice to see the chase come together and implement the plan successfully. I left the storm about 5pm and headed home, getting back about 7:30. An early evening for being so far in SE Colorado.

tn_May232015_Eads-2609 tn_May232015_Eads-2610 tn_May232015_Eads-6491

Castle Rock looking NW on my drive home

Quick timelapse of the storm approaching me near Eads. 6 shots a minute for 15 minutes.

Early Season Palmer Divide Lightning

Posted on April 8, 2015 by davealex

Was sitting down at the computer after the kids were tucked in expecting to do some armchair chasing action with the upper air trough and severe weather digging into the plains states tonight, and started hearing some pellets hit the windows of the house–it was graupel coming down. Graupel is pellets of snow/ice that is much smaller than hail which is not unusual for this time of year. About ten minutes later the first bolt of lightning lit up the house!

One of the first bolts I caught, only about 8 or so bolts left in the storm before it was over…

I wasn’t prepared for this like I usually am during the monsoonal flow in late July/early August, so I jumped into high gear and grabbed the tripod and camera and got everything ready. Focus is always a problem with the DSLR but I pointed it at a neighbor’s houselight (I usually curse this light because it is on all night, every night of the year, and makes watching meteorite showers frustrating) but tonight it seemed to have a purpose to get me a good focus as I changed the lens to manual focus mode. As you may know focusing lightning can be very difficult!

I then jumped out on the porch hoping for some visible bolts not obstructed by the clouds and immediately the bolts were flying over head. Being on a porch with lightning this close is extremely dangerous (by definition overhead is very close) so I quickly put the camera on autopilot and headed back to the safety inside.

Mother Nature’s show lasted no more than 15 minutes and was very localized; as luck would have it many of the bolts were in the least obstructed view from my porch! Nice! Captured several good shots making me even more excited for this upcoming chase season!

Best of davealex.com Lightning

Posted on September 27, 2014 by davealex

I love lightning!

Image taken SE of Parker Colorado, July 13, 2011

I love to look at the photos–this is a shortcut to my favorite posts so I don’t have to search. As always, you can click on any image on this site for a much larger version.

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