* *  Mike Umscheid PHOTOGRAPHY & STORM CHASE BLOG   * *


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3-Month Calendar of Shoots Centered on May 2012
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*May 2012*
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= Storm Chases & Shoots of May 2012 =



Location: Southwest Kansas to Northwest Oklahoma from Englewood, KS to Fort Supply, OK

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 1
Synopsis: After working the day shift, I chased a high-based supercell storm that first formed east of Meade, KS. I made it to the inflow sector of this storm at Englewood and continued to follow it south and southeast. The storm was high-based, but revealed some nice scalloped updraft structure at times, especially west-northwest of Buffalo, OK. The storm eventually died without much in the way of redevelopment other than a few small cells back close to the KS-OK border. At close to sunset, there was an amazing display of crepuscular rays which made for nice photography.




Location: Southwest Kansas from Ness City to Brownell to Rush Center, KS

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 2
Synopsis: My original target area was south of Dodge City, however no storms were forming in the Minneola to Meade areas, so I had to head back north toward Jetmore and eventually Ness City. A low-precipitation (LP) supercell formed just to my west near Ness City and I followed this storm east to Brownell photographing some of the LP structure as it moved northeast. I let this storm go north of Brownell in favor of a new storm forming to my southwest. I plotted a track to intercept this storm near La Crosse/Rush Center. This storm revealed nice structure and colors at sunset as I photographed it to my northwest. All in all, a fairly fun day of storm photography in southwest Kansas not all that far from home.




Location: Western Nebraska from Big Springs to Hyannis to Merriman, NE and points southeast through the Sandhills

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 1
Synopsis: This was a frustrating storm chase. I joined Matt Crowther at Ogallala and we headed to Big Springs where weak storms were trying to initiate. We followed these north all the way to Hyannis, always staying behind the main storm as the storms were racing off to the north at around 45-50mph. Matt and his chase partner broke off and headed back, concluding the chase, but I continued on stubbornly...all the way to Merriman along Hwy 20. I managed to catch a few images of low rolling stratus clouds in filtered sunlight over some sandhills landscape, but that was about it. I got caught in the low stratus and fog on Hwy 20, and dropped back south to Thedford later on in the evening just after sunset.




Location: Central & Southwest Kansas from Liebenthal to Bunker Hill to La Crosse, KS

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 6
Synopsis: The first storms I chased were up in the Liebenthal area which became outflow-dominant as they moved east-northeast south of I-70 between Hays and Russell. I eventually made it up to I-70 and followed this storm as far east as Bunker Hill. I photographed some high-based storm structure here, but it was new development way back down to the southwest that caught my eye. I abandoned the northern storms and dropped back south on Hwy 281 at Russell with only one goal in mind: Get in position of Tail-end Charlie (along the Rush-Ness County line). I did make it down there in position at around 8:30pm. From 8:30pm to about 10:50pm, I followed the slow-moving cyclic, tornadic supercell as it rolled across Rush County. I observed no less than 5 tornadoes with this storm. I stayed a bit farther back, capturing storm structure along with the tornado. After dark, I went north of Hwy 4 at Bison about 5 or 6 miles and photographed a beautiful, tall tornado which was lightning illuminated off to my north-northwest. Up through early June, this was certainly the storm of the year for me in 2012.




Location: Southwest Kansas from Ulysses to Copeland to Meade, KS

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 1
Synopsis: This was a non-supercell storm chase close to home. Storms first formed in the Ulysses area, and I followed them slowly east. The storms were high-based, but were quite electrical. I managed to capture quite a few daytime lightning images using the Lightning Trigger.




Location: Olathe, Kansas

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 3
Synopsis: This was one of those dumb luck chases. I went to the Royals game on May 6th, which was a day game. When I got back to my friend Niki's house, I noticed a storm forming just off to the west. I decided to make a chase of it... why not? It was just 15 miles west of me! I drove west to the northwest side of Olathe and photographed the initial storm which had some decent structure at times. A new cell then formed farther south which would impact far southern part of Olathe. I headed south on K-7 (which turned into Lone Elm Rd.) to 167th St. where the Lone Elm softball fields are. From this location I watched the complete evolution of rotating wall cloud to occlusion to funnel cloud/intermittent tornado off to my north in total amazement! The tornado eventually roped out and the storm went downhill from there, thus concluding the chase.




Other storm chases that busted/no photography in