May 20, 2006 Nighttime Storm Trip, June 17, 2006 Storms,
and July 12 nighttime storm.

My May 20th Storm Trip may be the shortest trip I'll ever take. We were sitting around a bon-fire at my house at about 2 am when I noticed lightning towards our south. It slowly crept closer and closer. Except for the lightning and storms to our South, there wasn't a cloud in the sky. I grabbed my camera gear, threw it in the back of our old truck (a 1983 Chevy with 320,000 miles), piled all of the guys in...Me, Chris Crawshaw, Patrick Lytle,and Charlie Willard. We traveled about 2 miles east of my house to Clapboard Ravine road. It's a dirt road that leads to one of 2 overlooks that oversees Alma KS in Wabaunsee County. We went up to the highest point, parked the truck at a pasture entrance, and walked up to the top of the hill. The pics I captured are below. Notice the stars in the sky above the clouds in the first picture. The little round object on the horizon is the dopplar radar tower.

 

The next couple of images below were taken in Riley county just south of Manhattan. This wasn't an actual stormchase. I was on my way to Manhattan to photograph a project for the Kansas State Forestry Service. Its been an ongoing project for this spring. Anyway, I got lucky and was early, so I had time to pull over and photograph this menacing looking storm. Its bark was worse than its bite, however, as this storm wasn't even classified as a severe thunderstorm. The flint hills region provides spectacular storm viewing as I can see for over 10 miles at the top of a hill. I was able to watch the rain bands come closer and closer in from the west. As it moved in, it made a really wierd bow. I think this is indicative of a strong gust-front associated with the storm. These photos were taken June 17, 2006.

 

 

This next image is of a thunderstorm that just missed Alma, hitting Topeka. I took this photograph on July 12. This storm dumped over an inch of rain onTopeka. It had a fascinating lightning display. On top of the lightning, a nearly full moon rose and broke through the clouds as the storm drifted towards the east. The clouds in the foreground and landscape are illuminated by the moon and make it look almost as if it were daytime! Notice the lights in the bottom left corner of the image. That is the town of McFarland, which is 3 miles east of Alma, or about 2 miles northeast of my location. You can see the stars in the topleft of the picture. Here is an interesting photographic phenomenon....The dark blue sky located at the upper leftside of the image is much dryer air, filtering in from the north, behind the storm, allowing the moonlight to reflect off, causing the deep blue appearance. The air in the right side of the image, located between the clouds and the horizon line is blowing in from the south, and is much more humid, keeping or "trapping" the moonlight from reflecting off into the atmosphere, causing a much brighter glowing effect. It is really neat to see the two completely different air masses in one photograph, and how they both look so different. One last interesting fact...The storm and clouds were moving very slowly. This image was taken in "bulb" setting on my Canon EOS 20D camera with a 45 second setting! The clouds barely appear blurry after 45 seconds. Many times, clouds and storms will appear as a streak at a 45 second setting!