High Plains Drifter

April 26th was a very productive storm photography day.  Lightning was nothing short of spectacular with a supercell thunderstorm that moved slowly across the San Angelo area.  On the way north to Abilene late in the evening, another storm produced spectacular lightning. 

I intercepted and photographed the San Angelo high-based supercell. AsI was en route to the San Angelo area from Big Springs, I ran into BillReid as the storm was in its incipient stage. The storm underwent a classic split after initiation to the south of Sterling City.Eventually, the right split finally took over, and I followed the storm southeast on approach to San Angelo. I decided to take Ranch 2288south, to bypass the city. This was a good choice as it offered me a wonderful view of the storm without the nuisance of dealing with the city. I connected the Lightning Trigger to my Nikon D200 after it became apparent that photogenic CG lightning was occurring at a reasonable interval around the updraft. It worked like a champ. The success rate with the Lightning Trigger is about 20-40% or so, I am finding, when shooting at a 1/10 to 1/30 shutter speed, depending on the on the return strokes after initial flash that triggers the device.There was so much lightning with this storm — high-quality, brilliant lightning. I cannot recall a storm of recent memory that I had so much fun photographing with respect to lightning. The supercell really became outflow dominant as it came into San Angelo. Overall supercell structure was pretty good, but the CG lightning was what made this storm a real treat to the photographer. East of San Angelo, I was leap-frogging Bill Reid and Paul Sirvatka’s COD team, staying ahead of the storm on Hwy 87 to Eden. I was able to capture a fantastic image looking west down Hwy 87 of a spectacular CG with COD’s chase vans in the distance on a hill.

I went south on Hwy 83 about 10 or 12 miles to photograph a little more…which was when I lost internet connection. There’s a data hole in this area. The SCIT track had the storm crossing Hwy 83 about 7miles south of Eden, so I waited patiently until the core of the storm crossed in front of me to the north. I went back north to Eden after about 20 minutes to find a wintry scene of hail covering Hwy 83 several inches deep over a couple mile stretch. From the last radar image I saw before data loss, there was another small supercell taking bead on the Ballinger area in time. I was planning to head to Abilene anyway, so I was hoping for a little more lightning. I was pretty greedy at this point — having an awesome good time! I stopped a couple times around the Paint Rock area for more incredible lightning. It was a staccato-fest! Bill Reid said it best after I saw him the final time when we were west of Eden: "It was like taking candy from a baby". What an incredibly fun chase. Below are a few crudely processed images that I did on my laptop. I have a couple more on my blog:  

Below are a few of the best images of the bunch from yesterday’s chase:

I was able to leave work right at 4pm for yesterday’s chase. As Iposted in the FCST thread, the area I was most interested in was alongand north of US-24 to Nebraska. I met up with Tony Laubach and VerneCarlson for a short time east of Ness City as some cumulus weresomewhat intriguing at the nose of a small scale mixed-out warm plumewhere convergence was locally maximized. I told myself that if the Cudidn’t look any better in 45 minutes, I would bolt northwest where Iwas extremely confident there would be a sustained surface based severestorm where the deep tropospheric forcing was much better acrossNorthwest KS. The first storms were developing with some decent echoesaloft around Goodland, and at that point, I continued north toWakeeney, then northwest to Hoxie, to my first stopping point south ofRexford. The southern storm had some nice shape to it and appeared tobe supercellular, but it was small. Of interest at the time was alarger mass of convective updraft due north. These two storms mergednorthwest of Rexford, and the storm really took off. Of course, it wasgetting well into the evening by this point, but the supercellstructure was quite fine…although high based. The westernmost portionof the storm revealed an interesting lowered feature, which I guess youcould call a wall cloud, but there was a lot of outflow dust beneath itlooking roughly west from near Hwy 23-83 junction at Seldon. It was toodark for handheld photography, so I tried my best to get the tripodsetup for some 1-3 second wide angle exposures amidst strong eastinflow winds and blowing dust.

Now,idiot me, I continued east on Hwy 9, instead of joining the massesheading south on 23. I guess I was expecting the storm to move more dueeast…and from my perspective due east of the storm, the structure waspretty good from a photography standpoint. I stopped briefly about 6 WNew Almelo for more long-exposure photography on the tripod before Ibegan to get pelted by quarter-size hail. Looking to thewest-southwest, the supercell structure looked pretty darn good fromthis vantage point on Highway 9, so the decision to head east insteadof south I guess wasn’t so bad after all. Of course, by the time I gotfar enough east to reach a south option again at Hwy 283, it was dark,and there was little if any decent lightning illuminated structure. Ireached Hill City amidst blaring tornado sirens, continuing southhopefully far enough south to get out of the cloud canopy so I can geta nice distant view of supercell structure. It really wasn’t to be. Idid stop at a high spot south of Hill City where other spotters andchasers also stopped, but by this time, the supercell circulation waseast of Hill City. There were a lot of lightning illuminated "hangydownies" just west of where the radar had strongest rotation near HillCity. There was nothing more to shoot of interest photography wise, soI headed south towards Wakeeney in hopes that maybe a very distant viewof the storm could be interesting, but even that wasn’t all that wascracked up to be, so I continued to Wakeeney, ate dinner, and headedhome. A fun little chase. Below are a few images (all 12mm wide angle):

March 2nd was my first chase of the 2008 storm chase season.  I wasn’t planning to chase this day, given the fact that for awhile it looked like the best setup for supercells would be too far south.  After awaking early in the morning Sunday, and upon looking at some initial data concerning the day’s severe weather threat, the focus had really shifted to the north where a pronounced warm ridge in the low levels would advance northward into southwestern Oklahoma.  Mid 50s dewpoints were to be expected to the west and northwest of this warm nose, providing about 1000 to 1500 J/kg of surface-based CAPE.  Since it appeared there was a reasonable chance at supercells within 4 hours of Dodge City, I decided to make it a chase, and left around 8:30 for a target around the Mangum, OK area in the southwestern part of the state. 

I arrived in Sayre, OK early in the afternoon to clearing skies with bubbling cumulus to my south.  It was warming well into the 70s to my immediate south with a few lower 80s around Childress, TX.  I decided to hang out there in Sayre until things started to develop.  Between 1:30 and 2:00pm, the incipient storms were developing just to my north.  It was tough to decided what to do — whether to go after the first "blips" on radar, or just meander east and wait for more stuff to develop down the line, which I expected.  There was uniform instability/shear pretty much across all of western Oklahoma, which made picking a storm largely a guessing game, or whatever the most interesting echo was that was the easiest intercept.  I knew that anything developing north of me would be extremely difficult to intercept given the northeast storm motion of 35-45 mph.  I headed north out of Sayre then east towards Elk City.  Some of the updrafts to the north caught my attention but they were already 15-20 miles north of me and rapidly moving away.  I drifted east a little bit on I-40, stopping occasionally to figure things out.  There were numerous small cells — storms of little organization.  It was a mess to try and sort through. 

By 3:15, I made it as far east as Clinton, and decided to head south down Hwy 183.  I made it all the way to Rocky, south-southwest of Cordell, and finally off to my west was some pretty decent updraft structure with one of the storms closest to me.  I followed this storm, stopping occassionally for photos, from 3:45 to 4:30 when I reached a location about 11 miles east of Rocky.  The storm attained some rotation and had fairly decent updraft structure including a rear-flank downdraft.  As the storm was heading northeast, I decided to continue following it north on Hwy 54.  A tornado warning was issued for the storm between 4:45 and 5:00 for strong radar circulation to my northwest.  There was indeed broad rotation at cloud base with pretty impressive clear slot/rear flank downdraft structure, but I could never discern what I would consider rapid rotation.  I continued east on Hwy 152 to Eakly to stay ahead of the storm and put myself in position to intercept the next storm (which was also tornado-warned) immediately to the south.  Instead, after looking back again to the northwest and seeing a very ominous looking "mass" of cloud near the ground wrapped up behind the rear-flank downdraft, I decided to head north on Hwy 58 at Eakly.  What followed was a very interesting mass of cloud that very much resembled a large funnel cloud or even multiple funnels protruding to the surface in the proper location for tornado development behind the clear slot.  I was too far away and driving while this was happening (trying to get closer), so it was very difficult to ascertain what was going on.  Briefly, it certainly looked like a laminar "cigar" shaped funnel developed, descending quite low from cloud base.  It was changing shape quite a bit though.  It really appeared that tornadogenesis was really trying hard here, probably somewhere between Weatherford and Colony.  Eventually, this feature waned and the storm croaked as I headed north back towards the I-40. 

This would be the extent of the day’s chase pretty much.  Since it was still fairly early (only 5:30pm or so), I decided to head east to get ahead of the line in hopes of getting decent shelf cloud images.  I continued chasing until about 6:45 or so, awaiting the line of storms just outside of Minco.  The shelf cloud structure was less than inspiring, unfortunately, and it was also too dark for much photography.  Most of the lightning was embedded in the core of the storms, so there wasn’t much opportunity for lightning photography either.  The chase was done and headed to Clinton to stay the night.  I didn’t feel like driving for 3 hours back home in the dark against a 40-50mph head wind.

Yesterday was a successful chase in western Kansas.  It took awhile for storms to become organized into supercell structures, but I finally intercepted an HP supercell north of Scott State Lake north of Scott City and followed it east as it began to get dark towards the Healy area.  After dark, another brief supercell formed between Dighton and Scott City, and I had some fairly nice success in photographing lightning illuminated structure with this storm (the last photo shown of the 3 below).  I’ll write a little more detailed account later, but right now, I need to get ready for today’s chase. 

Well, not a whole lot to report really from this chase.  My original target was west-central KS somewhere south of Goodland.  I left Dodge City around 11:30am and drove towards Garden City where I rested a little bit at the US-83/US-50 truck stop just north of town (I just came off midnight shifts, so I was kind of tired).  After snoozing in the parking lot for about 45 minutes, it came to about 1:30 or so, and I headed up towards Scott City where I grabbed some lunch.  I noted at this time that there was some convective development to my south, but it looked rather elevated to me, and there was quite a bit of mid level moisture involved, so I didn’t put a whole lot of stock into this and figured it wouldn’t amount to much.  After I got finished with lunch, a storm had exploded south of me between Garden City and Dodge City — go figure.  This storm did indeed look supercellular briefly on radar, but I figured I was too far away and by the time I got back down there, it wouldn’t be as good on radar… I figured the best that storm would offer would be short-lived.  So I continued on my plan as I expected more storms to develop farther northwest in my area.  By mid-afternoon, I thought the best area at the nose of mid-60s dewpoints and southeast winds…at the nose of the good warming as well…was pushing up into Sharon Springs area, so I decided to head west from Scott City.  Well, by this time, storms were indeed rapidly developing just south of Scott City, so I didn’t go very far west before turning back around.

The best storm of the day on this chase would be this storm that developed right near Scott City which moved north-northeast through Gove County.  I core-punched this north of Scott City, receiving no better than pea to 1/2 inch diameter hail along US83 near Lake Scott State Park.  Eventually, I got north of this precipitation area and finally in view of a nice updraft to my immediate northeast.  Looking at radar, this storm appeared to have anti-cyclonic shear to it…and based on its movement due north, I certainly believe that to be the case.  According to the forecast wind profile hodograph, cyclonic supercells were expected to more more east-northeast or almost due east.  A long east to west axis of updrafts were noted extending from primary storm updraft to my northeast through north through northwest.  I did observed a number of small, brief dusty-spinups as it appeared there was a nebulous convergence line in the area (there was a fine-line on radar).  None of these spin-ups were what I would call "rapidly rotating" though.  At roughly 4:05pm, I did observe a healthier looking dust-spinup to my northeast beneath the main updraft.  There was also a bit of a kink, or a notch, in the updraft base to also support this dust spinup.  It could be argued that this was a brief, weak tornadic spin-up, but the rotation at cloud base was never really all that strong.  I never thought this would be anything significant, and in less than a minute or two, this circulation was gone.  It was quite interesting, however, at the time, and did get some decent photos looking northeast from Hwy 83 near the Monument Rocks Landmark.

Eventually, this storm would weaken, and an outflow surge of southeast winds would blow out from this storm through the remainder of my target area over the next couple of hours through the Russell Springs and Oakley areas…then points west from there…effectively killing off any additional threat for supercell storms in this area, which I found dissapointing.  I got up towards Oakley and drove around a little bit trying to figure out what my next move would be (it was still before 5pm!), but it didn’t take long to realize that the rest of the photogenic storm day was shot, and I headed back home.  I got back to Dodge City just before 8pm or so.  Below are a couple of photos:

Not a whole lot to report from the chase on August 25th — as it didn’t turn out to be all that spectacular in terms of supercells.  A briefly interesting storm provided photogenic opportunities along the NM-CO border area south of Kim, CO.  The storm was small and LP-ish, and given it’s size, it did not last long.  Other attempts went up along the trough convergence, however they struggled mightily.  The most sustained storm was actually east of Raton, and I had blown that area off.  In retrospect, I probably should have chased that, as it tempted me several times with overshooting tops.  I like chasing this whole area here because it is so scenic… and even the most innocuous looking storm can provide for nice "storm in landscape" photography.  Below are a couple images from the chase:

After I got off work at 4pm yesterday, I decided to chase…and intercepted a fairly impressive high-based supercell between Scott City and Garden City, arriving around 5:30.  This storm evolved into a larger HP supercell as it neared Garden City as other smaller storms west of Garden City were forming and congealing with the main storm.  Some of the storm structure was fantastic, especially south of Garden City along Hwy 83 near the Finney-Haskell county line.  I would estimate winds just to my north around the south side of the large circulation to have been 70-80 mph when I was a few miles north of Sublette.  Another storm formed farther south…to the northwest of Liberal which attained nice structure.  This storm was stationary right at sunset and also morphed into a big HP supercell as the northern activity was approaching.  Quite a fascinating chase with excellent storm structure!  Below are  a few prelim photos:

I decided to chase on July 9th since a potential target for severe storms was somewhat close to my route home in either far south-central KS or northwestern OK.  I targetted the area between Woodward, OK and Anthony, KS.  The storms weren’t all that spectacular, but one small storm was rather photogenic near Cheyenne Valley along US Highway 412 in northern Major County along the Cimarron River (near the Gloss Mountain State Park).  This particular storm did reveal decent overall rotation, but given its size, I don’t think it was severe.  I was in a data network black-hole… there is no Alltel coverage (or even Sprint or Verizon for that matter) in a lot of Northwest Oklahoma…still… so I had to rely on old-school tactics (really the way it should be)… using my eyes only to make decisions on where to go next.  The strongest storms of the day were near the Oklahoma City metro area, but I decided not to go down there.  It was still a fun little chase… I really wanted to try out my lightning shutter trigger device on my Nikon D200 (www.lightningtrigger.com), but I saw maybe 2 cloud-to-ground lightning flashes the entire chase!  Oh well