It was another amazing sunset as Evan and I photographed storms to our west
and southwest with the precipitation curtains lightning up in amazing hues
of violet, orange, and red. I managed to get one cloud-to-ground lightning
flash on the right hand edge of one of the frames when the color was really
good, although no branching unfortunately. We continued to photograph
lightning for awhile after sunset at this spot just off Exit 62 west of
Deming along I-10.
Evan and I headed east on the 26th first photographing some very
short-lived storms over the Dos Cabezas Mountains. We then headed east for
much more numerous lightning producing storms south and east of Lordsburg,
NM. We dropped south on Hwy 383 to Animas and photographed the backside of
some storms to the southeast with a few distant lightning strikes over the
Little Hatchet Mountains. New storms formed back west, to the
west/southwest of Animas, which is where we had our most success with
several vivid staccato lightning flashes and a red sunset to remember as a
close, semi-transparent precipitation curtain just to our west lit up red
for about two minutes creating a surreal red filter of the entire
landscape! The image included in this post is of a lightning flash to the
south-southeast with the Peloncillo Mountains in the distance on the right.
Evan and I started the day hoping for some lightning over Tucson from early
afternoon storms viewed from the Catalina Highway (Babad Do'ag Vista). That
was rather unsuccessful, so then we ventured northwest and west along I-8
reaching Gila Bend. We let a storm approach us with all sorts of dust
about 10 miles south-southwest of Gila Bend on Hwy 85. After that failed to
produce lightning for us, we headed for our third storm cluster of the day
in western Arizona as storms moved southwest out of the mountains of
northwestern Arizona. Some of them held together and we finally got some
lightning near the town of Salome, AZ. We then core punched one heck of a
wet microburst with 60-70 mph winds. When we reached the south side of that
storm, we photographed some after-dark lightning near Brenda not far from
the I-10 US-60 junction. Attached to this post is my best image from near
Salome, AZ
