* *  Mike Umscheid PHOTOGRAPHY & STORM CHASE BLOG   * *


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*2010*
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June 2010
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January 2010

= Storm Chases & Shoots of 2010 =



Location: North-central Kansas near Osborne

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 0
Synopsis: My chase partner Evan Bookbinder and I intercepted some photogenic storms and skies across north-central Kansas including 1) a high based supercell near Alton, KS... 2) incredible mammatus/lightning with pastel colors at sunset near Luray, KS... 3) a rare heat-burst with 40 to 50 mph "hot" winds in 95 degree air at 10:30pm at night between Luray and Osborne, KS.




Location: My house 5 miles north of Dodge City, KS

Shoot type: Weather and Sky Around Home
# of images: 0
Synopsis: One of my finest images of the year came from my very own garage as I decided to set up the tripod and hope to capture some lightning around sunset following a strong storm. There was clearing on the western horizon just in time for the setting sun which set the stage for a wonderful rainbow. I manage to get one image with the brilliant rainbow and a forked cloud-to-ground lightning flash!




Location: West-central Kansas from Shallow Water to south of Wakeeney, KS

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 0
Synopsis: A high-based, weak storm formed northwest of Garden City and struggled to reach severe limits. The storm was rather unphotogenic, and I did not shoot many images of this storm, however near sunset I did manage a few decent cloud-to-ground lightning images near Trego Center south of Wakeeney, KS.




Location: Part 1: Southeast Colorado near Pritchett
Part 2: Far southeastern Colorado west of Campo
Part 3: Far southeastern Colorado south of Campo, CO...into the western Oklahoma Panhandle toward Keyes, OK

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 0
Synopsis: The long-lived, significant tornadic supercell of 31 May 2010 will go down as probably my most thoroughly and successfully documented significant tornadic supercell in my 13 years of storm chasing. There were three distinct phases of this storm chase, and as such, I will document this account and share my images in 3 parts.

The first phase (Part 1 of 3) was the time frame from roughly 2:45pm to 4:30pm which included a 20-minute tornado southwest of Pritchett, Colorado.

The second phase was a long period from 4:30pm to about 7:00pm when the supercell was non-tornadic but still cycled through several significant occlusions, one of which was very close to being tornadic (Part 2 of 3).

The Campo, Colorado significant tornado, the hallmark moment of this supercell, is documented in Part 3 along with the post-tornado sunset structure as the storm rolled southeast into the Oklahoma Panhandle northeast of Boise City.





Location: Sandhills of western Nebraska from Thedford to Mullen to Stapleton

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 0
Synopsis: A cold front moving south was the focus for storm initiation in the sandhills, however since the front was moving south at a fairly decent clip, the storms quickly became undercut and supercell structures did not thrive.




Location: Northwest Kansas near Colby

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 0
Synopsis: After a long drive from Aberdeen, South Dakota, I finally made into northwest Kansas by early evening, intercepting some marginally severe storms near Colby. This wasn't a very successful shoot, but I did manage a few cloud-to-ground lightning images before heading on home after this event-filled weekend chase trip




Location: Northeastern South Dakota from Lowry to Bowdle to Roscoe

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 0
Synopsis: I intercepted and photographed a number of tornadoes from a very impressive supercell storm. Due to a road block on Hwy 47 southwest of Bowdle, I fell behind the storm during the time the storm was producing the massive wedge tornado, thus I have no images of the wedge. After the wedge, I caught back up with the storm and photographed more tornadoes and the amazing storm structure from north of Hwy 12 a few miles. I was part of the now infamous "farm field incident" where a number of chasers became trapped on a poorly marked dead-end road which ended up into a farmer's field as a tornado was bearing down on us.




Location: Southeastern Wyoming from north of Wheatland to Fort Laramie to Lusk...into far northwestern Nebraska Panhandle from Harrison to Crawford.

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 0
Synopsis: I intercepted a nice looking supercell with a classic wall cloud as it moved off the Laramie Mountains northwest of Wheatland. I followed this storm to Ft. Laramie before moving into the horrible road network between Hwy 26 and Hwy 20 northeast of Torrington, WY. I photographed additional photogenic storm and sky scenes along Hwy 85 and 20 later in the chase




Location: Southwest Kansas near Cimarron, KS

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 0
Synopsis: After mis-targeting down in the Buffalo-Laverne, OK area, I drove back north toward Gray County, KS to intercept storms that were persistently producing weak landspout tornadoes. I photographed a couple of them southeast of Cimarron, KS, including one that crossed a dirt road less than 100 yards from me.




Location: Southwest Kansas into Northwest Oklahoma from near Bucklin, KS to between Protection, KS and Buffalo, OK

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 0
Synopsis: This was one of my most successful storm photography days of the year and one of my favorites in quite awhile since I was pretty much the only chaser on this storm as it moved into far northwest Oklahoma at sunset. I photographed the storm to my northeast and east as the photographer's "golden hour" approached. The structure amidst the Cimarron River Valley landscape was spectacular, including a beautiful pink wall cloud!




Location: Southwest Kansas near home... northwest of Dodge City near the Horsethief Reservoir

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 0
Synopsis: This was not an expected chase after work. I was watching things unfold on radar after waking up from a nap after work. I left the house around 7:00pm after noticing a lowering in a cloud base as viewed from my back porch. I drove about 10 miles northwest of my house to photograph this storm, which had decent structure at times until sunset.




Location: Southwest Oklahoma from Vinson to Retrop to Cordell

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 0
Synopsis: Intercepted a supercell near the Texas-Oklahoma border with Matt Crowther west of Vinson, OK. We saw a one-minute tornado west of highway 30 as we drove up into the inflow notch of the storm with the tornado coming at us. We re-intercepted the storm later on southwest of Retrop as it was HP in nature and followed it up toward Cordell.




Location: West-central Kansas from Shallow Water to Scott City to Utica to McCracken

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 0
Synopsis: I decided to chase the early developing convection north of Garden City. I had to remain fairly close to Dodge City since I was in the middle of my midnight shifts. This was the High Risk day across south-central KS and north-central OK. I photographed a menacing HP supercell with my best images coming from the Shallow Water area between Garden City and Scott City, KS.




Location: Northwest Kansas near Grainfield, KS

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 0
Synopsis: High-based storms developed in a very cold air aloft environment despite dewpoints in the mid to upper 30s. The strongest storm photographed was during the early evening hours around Grainfield in Gove County, KS. Several decent lightning images were captured from this storm.




Location: Northeast New Mexico/southeast Colorado from Capulin Volcano, NM to Kim, CO

Shoot type: Weather and Landscape
# of images: 0
Synopsis: Scattered snow showers developed midday and continued through the early evening hours providing great photogenic scenes from atop Capulin Volcano and later on along Highway 160 from Trinidad to Kim, Colorado




Location: Western Oklahoma panhandle and extreme northeast New Mexico from Guymon, OK to Clayton, NM

Shoot type: Weather and Landscape
# of images: 0
Synopsis: scattered rain/snow showers dotted the landscape of the western Oklahoma panhandle into northeastern New Mexico, providing for some interesting compositions late in the afternoon through mid evening hours




Location: Central Kansas from Wilson Lake to Beverly, KS

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 0
Synopsis: After a bust on the dryline farther south across southwest Kansas, severe storms developed rapidly around and just after sunset to the north of my original target. I followed severe storms from Wilson Lake east to Beverly, KS from around 8:30pm to 11:00pm CDT




Location: Sandhills of central Nebraska in the area from Stapleton to Anselmo, NE

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 0
Synopsis: Photographed 3 supercells during the early through late evening hours. The first supercell and third supercells were photographed most, with the third supercell being the most photogenic -- frontlit by the rising full moon with amazing structure and lightning




Location: Sandhills of western Nebraska northwest of Thedford, NE

Shoot type: Landscape
# of images: 0
Synopsis: I took a 65-mile round trip journey across southern Cherry County, NE traversing various ranch roads collecting some landscape along with a few wildlife scenes during about a 4 1/2 hour period from late afternoon through mid-evening.




Location: Texas panhandle southeast of Amarillo, TX

Shoot type: Landscape
# of images: 0
Synopsis: After a day of essentially no photography, I decided to redeem the day by shooting during the middle of the night when a bright moon was up. I photographed a few flooded farm fields near Wayside followed by the Palo Duro Canyon along Highway 207




Location: East-central New Mexico near Vaughn, NM

Shoot type: Weather and Landscape
# of images: 0
Synopsis: On the first day of my vacation, I decided to head into New Mexico to photograph showers amidst the wonderful landscape of eastern New Mexico. Close to sunset, there was a vivid rainbow near Vaughn along with very contrasting rain/virga shafts




Location: Northwest Kansas across eastern Gove County, KS

Shoot type: Storm Chase
# of images: 0
Synopsis: This was the first storm chase of 2010, intercepting sub-severe storms along a weak cold front. A few of the storms showed some loose organization, one of which producing a lowering right at sunset with vivid orange colors near Quinter, KS.




Location: Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado

Shoot type: Landscape
# of images: 0
Synopsis: Hiked up the 600 ft. High Dune during the mid morning hours before departing. We were greeted with some frosty sand before the sun rose above the mountains. A few lenticular were visible over the Sangre de Cristo mountains.




Location: Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado

Shoot type: Landscape
# of images: 0
Synopsis: I met up with my friend Michelle Douglass for a two-day trip at Great Sand Dunes. After setting up camp, we did a little bit of shooting in the late day light... first on the dunes, and then just after sunset just south of the park entrance with some interesting cloud formations above the distant mountain peaks.




Location: Southwest Kansas from near Liberal to Minneola, KS

Shoot type: Winter Weather
# of images: 0
Synopsis: I left Dumas, TX very early in the morning on the 30th in order to get back to Dodge City before my next work shift. Along the way, I was greeted to some fairly spectacular rime ice. I photographed first before sunrise along the Cimarron River area just northeast of Liberal then at sunrise in the town of Minneola, KS




Location: Dumas, Texas

Shoot type: Winter Weather
# of images: 0
Synopsis: The morning after the Jan 28th significant snowfall in Dumas, TX (13.5"), I ventured out on foot to photograph some of the scenes around the south part of town.




Location: Dumas, Texas

Shoot type: Winter Weather
# of images: 0
Synopsis: I decided to document this major winter storm since it was scheduled to hit during my few days off work. I arrived in Dumas, TX the evening before, and the storm hit early morning on the 28th. Snow lasted all day with the peak of the storm during the early to mid afternoon hours where snowfall rates were between 1 and 2" per hour for several hours. Near-blizzard conditions resulted with occasional white-out visibility.




Other storm chases that busted/no photography in 2010