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: