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Insane thunderstorm over Nuenen

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So at the facility we’re working at today, I asked this crazy, funny, Dutch guy around noon, “So what, no rain today? Looks pretty nice out!” He responds, “Oh no, bad storm coming, will be here between 5-6pm.” Alright, we’ll see!

Photo above taken at 5:42pm.

Umm, wow, this was probably the coolest looking storm I’ve ever seen. Well, maybe I’m just excited, but as you can see from the photo, there was some serious nastiness headed right for me. The clouds were churning, I saw a small funnel up high in the clouds (probably just a “cold air funnel”, barely anything, but I saw it!), the lightning was all over and then once the storm hit, there was 70mph winds and debris from trees all over the place.

We went out to dinner later and there were some flattened cornfields, a few uprooted trees and broken branches littering the small town of Nuenen.

This shot is a “shakily” held merge of two 3-bracket HDR images. CS5 worked some magic for me here which I may talk about at a later date, but no time for it now.

Suffice to say…it’s hard to believe I was worried about missing the monsoon in Arizona when stuff like this was waiting for me.

I have some more nasty photos I may post later on…but this one took some time and I had to get it out there.

(More Holland photos here: Holland Trip)

Stormchasing: Scary clouds over the highway

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My intention while I was out stormchasing was to get photographs that weren’t dominated by powerlines and other vehicles like a lot of severe weather photography is like these days. But I couldn’t resist the shot of these insanely crazy clouds over this road and the car of a few other stormchasers I was following along with.

These guys were great…they pulled over alongside me earlier and asked if I was chasing, so we chatted and kind of stuck together for awhile. Good guys and it was amazing to find out how friendly people were. I met another stormchaser while out there and he was just as nice a guy. Must be a fun fraternity to be a part of out there.

Stormchasing: A long fence

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Here’s another shot of a cool barbed wire fence in the sandy hills of Nebraska during a severe weather outbreak. The clouds are scary here, in fact, on the horizon just left of the fence, you can see a dark area that almost looks like a funnel dropping behind the hills. In fact, I was standing with a few other guys and we all thought it WAS a funnel, so within a second of taking this shot, I had ran into the truck and headed north.

But the reason I love this photo is more of the fence starting on the left and disappearing into the center of the frame than of the clouds. I do enjoy how HDR can make clouds look almost like a painting when processed a certain way, which I think kind of works here.

Stormchasing: Trees and Fences

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Still running through my photos from my stormchasing trip to Nebraska on Saturday (plus photos from things other than storms, can’t wait to post a few of those later on), so wanted to dump a few more on you.

I do so love trees, especially isolated ones in the middle of nowhere. The photo above has a little baby tree, some cattle off on the right side of the frame and a giant cloud crossing the sky. It was an ominous scene.

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Stormchasing: Wall clouds and inflows from Nebraska

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A few more shots from my trip to Nebraska. I have to say, without having seen most of the state, the parts I did get to journey through were beautiful. Rolling hills, scattered trees…green farmlands, reservoirs, old towns, old buildings…it was just a perfect place to travel through.

The above photo is of the wall cloud I saw, which is the first in my life. You can see the lowering in the middle of the frame. I was hoping soooo badly it would just drop a tornado, but no such luck.

The one below is of the same storm a little later. I think what I’m seeing in this shot on the right inflow into the supercell. The white, smooth arcing cloud is out in front of the wall cloud on the left…so I’m pretty sure it was the inflow area.

Stormchasing: A couple of more shots from Nebraska

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One of my main goals when it comes to stormchasing, whether I take a big trip to Nebraska to do it or drive around finding the monsoons here in Arizona this summer, is to take photos that are as well composed as I can make them in whatever situation I find myself.

I love looking at stormchasers’ photos from the midwest…tornadoes, lightning, wall clouds, scary stuff…but aside from a few guys that take their time when shooting (Dick McGowan, Mike Hollingshead), most of them are hurried shots without much thought of framing a nice scene.

My stormchasing experience is very lacking, so I don’t have a lot of room to talk, but I tried my best to achieve my goal when snapping these shots on Saturday. It’s not always easy I find, because sometimes the monster cloud is hovering over a highway and there is a car in the way and two other guys with cameras taking pictures of it as well!

I was a little disappointed with what I ended up seeing overall…I saw some amazing stuff, captured it as best I could, but I just failed to see that monster supercell isolated by itself with amazing structure going on.  Obviously I only had one day, so I’m not being too hard on myself, PLUS it was a heck of a fun time…I just hope to one day get another crack at shooting this stuff.

Stormchasing: Hail core dump

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I had planned a 4-day stormchasing extravaganza this spring, but the way things worked out, it ended up being a one-day blitzkrieg on Saturday up to Nebraska to photograph whatever I could in a short amount of time.

Part of me wishes I lived around this weather so I could photograph it more often…and the other side of me, after seeing the craziness of the clouds and weather…am just fine living in Arizona *grin*

This is one of the shots from the day. A hail core being dumped north of Mullen, Nebraska. It had multiple tornadic signatures on it, but we never saw a funnel.

More to come!