* *  Mike Umscheid PHOTOGRAPHY & STORM CHASE BLOG   * *


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3-Month Calendar of Shoots Centered on May 2013
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= Storm Chases & Shoots of May 2013 =



Location: Southwest Kansas near Ulysses, KS

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 2
Synopsis: This chase was not all that exciting except for a brief time northwest of Ulysses. A storm formed along a nearly stationary north-south boundary and attained some rotation. I met up with David Mayhew and we observed some rather wild tornadogenesis activity very near our location. A brief tornado formed in a farm field just east of us by a few hundred yards, but it never really advanced past the debris whirl stage.




Location: Far Northeast Colorado near Julesburg, CO

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 6
Synopsis: On this day, I intercepted and photographed a beautiful LP supercell that attained mothership structure by mid to late evening. At sunset as the storm approached Julesburg, the storm took on an amazing corkscrewing structure with amazing striations. Several gallery-level images resulted from this storm -- it was amazing!




Location: Red River along TX-OK border

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 1
Synopsis: This was the third of a 3-day chase along with Jon, Rob, Mitch, and Candice. We decided on a southern target south of the Red River as we thought storms across central OK would fire early and become messy real quick. That did not exactly pan out as thought, as a destructive tornado tore through Moore, OK on this day a several hours after we passed through the city heading south. We did intercept an intense HP supercell near Ringgold, TX south of the Red River. It produced a tornado wrapped in rain to our south as we were driving east of Ringgold, but we never confirmed it visually. We managed to get a few HP supercell structure shots, but nothing too spectacular from this chase otherwise.




Location: North-central Oklahoma toward Ponca City at dark

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 1
Synopsis: The main chase was largely a bust, once again, as we (myself, Jon, Rob, Mitch, and Candice) opted to stay north instead of farther south down the dryline where tornadoes occurred just north and northeast of the Oklahoma City metro. One of the storms we chased did produce a tornado near South Haven, but we somehow managed to miss this tornado while we were repositioning back south. We had a disagreement on what to do next as there were tornadic supercells an hour and a half to our south. Rob, Mitch, and Candice opted to try to intercept these storms, while Jon and I hung back in hopes of further development closer to where we were along the I-35 corridor south of the KS border. Nothing really happened until after sunset when storms formed south of Ponca City as we were eating dinner. The best images of the day came from just outside our motel room in Ponca as we had a great look to the south at fantastic lightning-illuminated cumulonimbus storm structure -- so not all was lost on the day photography wise.




Location: Kansas-Oklahoma border area south of Coldwater, KS

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 2
Synopsis: This was one of the most frustrating storm chases ever. I met up with Rob, Mitch, Candice, and Jon while they were out on their storm chase trip. After staging in Greensburg, we decided to head south instead of north, which cost us the Rozel tornado. The storms we went after were outflow dominant junk. We did have a fairly pretty sunset with mammatus and some anvil lightning, but a far cry from what should have been. This was a bad bust.




Location: West-central Kansas

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 1
Synopsis: I followed some outflow-dominant storms that formed across northwestern Kansas early in the chase, around and east of the Oakley area. I continued east on I-70 toward Wakeeney then headed south into Ness County, where I did manage to capture a decent, but distant staccato lightning flash with the town of Utica in the foreground at dusk.




Location: Kill Creek Park, Johnson County, Kansas

Shoot type: Wildlife
# of images: 1
Synopsis: This was a morning walk-around bird photography shoot along the trails at Kill Creek Park. Species photograph included Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Indigo Bunting (√), Eastern Bluebird (√), Eastern Phoebe, Yellow Warbler, Northern Cardinal




Location: Quivira National Wildlife Refuge, Kansas

Shoot type: Wildlife
# of images: 3
Synopsis: This was a fairly fun afternoon/early evening at Quivira. Species photograph included Eastern Kingbird, Yellow Warbler, Orchard Oriole, American Avocet (√), Semipalmated Plover (√), Wilson's Phalarope (√), Eared Grebe, Black-necked Stilt, Red-tailed Hawk, Black-bellied Plover, White-faced Ibis, Great Blue Heron, Baltimore Oriole, Cliff Swallow (√), Western Kingbird (√).




Location: My neighbor's pond, Dodge City, Kansas

Shoot type: Wildlife
# of images: 0
Synopsis: I spotted this Red-breasted Merganser on my neighbor's pond late morning on May 6th. The photos were not all that great, but at least I got a few for documentary sake as this bird is not all that common in Ford County.




Location: My co-worker's backyard, Dodge City, Kansas

Shoot type: Wildlife
# of images: 2
Synopsis: A co-worker of mine notified me of a Summer Tanager that was frequenting his backyard during the late afternoon/early evening hours on May 4th. I decided to head over to his house to photograph this rare treat (by western Kansas standards) as the bird was found at close range on his backyard lawn. Cool bird!




Location: Ford County SFL, Kansas

Shoot type: Wildlife
# of images: 3
Synopsis: The highlights of this morning birding/shoot were some decent shots of Yellow-rumped Warbler in full breeding plumage as well as a rare treat for Ford County: Lazuli Bunting.




Other storm chases that busted/no photography in