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Violent weather!

I've been on a few opportunistic chases as I was driving across the the plains.  These yielded some nice storm pictures and sunsets, but no tornadoes. :(
 
A few years back I made a setup-specific drive to Oklahoma, where a missed turn (chasing alone is a prescription for task overload!) cost me a chance at seeing what turned out to be a very brief nader.
 
I DO want to get out to the plains again!  This spring might work out - or it might not, depending on employment, free time, and free $.  :neutral:
 
Living in Aridzona, I make the most of the monsoon season. (We do have a brief 'Tornado season' in October, when an early-winter storm system gets far enough south to collide with lingering moisture.  This gives us cute little 'mini-supercells' that occasionally spit out a weak tornado.)  The storms we get in the summer are generally the 'pop-up' variety that seldom have enough rotation to do anything remotely tornadic.  They can produce nice downdraft microbursts that are quite capable of tearing up mobile homes and pepper plants.  Two or three times a year any given location gets a severe thunderstorm directly overhead that can bring 50+ MPH winds and torrential rains.  Less violent thunderstorms are of course more common.  
 
The monsoon brings fantastic colors and textures to the sky.  After the long, baking leadup of one "Clear-skies and 100+" day after another that stretches from late April to early July, the storms are very, very welcome.
 
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ArizonaSunset.jpg

 
And a little lightning makes them even better  :)
 
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Sabino.jpg

 
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moruga welder said:
oh yeah was in my dads basement 5 years ago right after he passed , i was sweating new plumbing , sirens went off hear it came right through the back yard , took out the whole street behind me .  scared the shit out of me ! sounded like a damn locomotive coming into the basement ! then we had one go right by my backyard ( out by the river ) last year actually came down in a little town west then cruised thru the corn fields , up over the river and then gone .  thats enough for me !      :onfire:
 
That's how a lot of people get started - a near miss that triggers lifelong fascination with severe weather.
 
Geonerd said:
 
_MG_5762.jpg

 
ArizonaSunset.jpg

 
And a little lightning makes them even better  :)
 
Green_Valley_Flickr.jpg

 
Sabino.jpg

 
1000x.jpg
 
     That first pic reminds me of New Mexico. Except for the Saguaros.
 
 
 
     And the rest are great examples of desert southwest LP super cells. Gorgeous!

able eye said:
Really nice photos Geo.
 
     I KNOW you have some!
 
D3monic said:
I really miss Arizona skyline. My first 5 years of life was spent in a trailer court right at the base of south mountain. 
 
Arizona definitely has some beautiful scenery! I look forward to driving through there every time on my way to Las Vegas.
 
TrueNorthReptiles said:
 
Arizona definitely has some beautiful scenery! I look forward to driving through there every time on my way to Las Vegas.
 
What route do you take?  You could cut down through central and SE Utah before heading for one of the Canyon rims, then on to Zion and Vegas via Kanab and the Az Strip.  Plenty of 'Roadrunner' scenery en-route.
 
Southern Az is actually pretty bland.  There are some nice mountain ranges, but at least 70% of the terrain is just flat basins full of old alluvium and desert scrub.
The higher terrain north of Phoenix actually gets enough rain to grow trees and support (small) rivers and lakes!
 
It's been a slow year for storm photography.  Much of the action has occurred during the day, making lightning shots much less dramatical.  Tonight we finally got some very nice lightning at the right time of evening.  This is one big-assed discharge, and not a lot of post processing.  The scene was pretty dang cool!
 
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Geonerd said:
It's been a slow year for storm photography.  Much of the action has occurred during the day, making lightning shots much less dramatical.  Tonight we finally got some very nice lightning at the right time of evening.  This is one big-assed discharge, and not a lot of post processing.  The scene was pretty dang cool!
 
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How do you get shots like this? I can't time it properly, so I took a video of our most recent storm, and now I need to go through it and take screenshots of it.
 
When I was younger and on a road trip from Arkansas to Iowa I left a hotel in MO and a tornado formed behind me as I was leaving.   The Sky turned green, and I saw it coming from behind me as I was leaving the city.  It ended up hitting the hotel I had just left, and ripped the room I was in clean off the building. 
 
That and some experiences when I was younger out near Texas/Arkansas.   Amazing thing, Mother Nature.
 
Hybrid Mode 01 said:
 
     That's one of the coolest pictures I've ever seen. I love the way that bolt on the left is illuminating that cloudveil.
 
Yea, that turned out pretty good. I was shooting a f/4, which is a lot for lightning this close.  I don't generally like blown-out areas, but in this case it looks good.  If only I'd been aimed a hair to the left, enough to catch that third bolt. 
cruzzfish said:
How do you get shots like this? I can't time it properly, so I took a video of our most recent storm, and now I need to go through it and take screenshots of it.
 
It's pretty much a machine-gun job...  ;)
 
Tripod.
 
Try to find a reasonably clean horizon, free of antenna, streetlights, etc.  Scout these locations before time so that you'll know just where to go when a storm arrives from a given direction. 
 
With AF lenses, getting the lens focused at infinite distance can be a PITA.  Use live view or find a distant subject.  (I use old Oly MF 35mm lenses that work great.)
 
ISO to 100 usually.
 
Pick an aperture.  Lightning is like flash photography in that the aperture and ISO determine the resulting brightness.  f/5.6 ~ 6.7 is a good average to start at.  Open to F4 or more if the lightning is distant or buried in rain, and try f/16 if the neighbor's house is on fire...
 
Chimp and adjust shutter speed to expose the sky, clouds, whatever.  Leave at least 2 stops of headroom in the sky/clouds for the lightning.
 
Shutter mode to continuous.  Attach shutter release switch and Rambo away!
 
Geonerd said:
  If only I'd been aimed a hair to the left, enough to catch that third bolt. 

 
 
 
     But at the same time, I like seeing the contrast of the blue cloud ceiling in the background.
 
 
 
Geonerd said:
 
Yea, that turned out pretty good. 
 
 
     Indeed!
 
Hybrid Mode 01 said:
 
     But at the same time, I like seeing the contrast of the blue cloud ceiling in the background.
 
 
 
Yes!  The environmental textures and colors are, IMO, necessary to an interesting lightning shot. 
 
In this instance I was stuck between lenses.  This was with a 50mm on aps-c, and my next widest lens, a 28, was just a bit too wide for my liking.  I didn't anticipate the entire sky exploding at once.  Second guessing is part of the fun!  :)
 
Geonerd said:
 
 
 
In this instance I was stuck between lenses.  This was with a 50mm on aps-c, and my next widest lens, a 28, was just a bit too wide for my liking.  I didn't anticipate the entire sky exploding at once.  Second guessing is part of the fun!  :)
 
     I have no idea what you're talking about, but I like the results!
 
A few more from the last week.  Two good nights have brought the lightning season to life!
 
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Mixed light sources and a mild saturation bump can make for some trippy images! 
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And a B/W, about the only way to deal with the yucky colors cast by city light pollution.
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2016 Monsoon is underway!   :onfire:  :onfire:  :onfire:
A brief blast of tropical moisture generated some decent storms Friday night.
 
 
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I've really got to find some new material this year.  The above is 'cool,' but after many years it's long since time to come up with a new 'vision' for my lightning photos.  I'm going to try to get out to the basins S and SE of Tcuson and capture the "desert + mountains + sweeping landscape" thing more.  This city stuff is starting to feel downright tacky... :neutral:  
 
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