6-27-10 Local Storms (not really a chase)

Very unusual day as several rounds of storms rolled through, the first the worst (though I missed 'em). Nothing in the way of damage. As the last round began to move through I went out in the backyard and shot a few pictures of its approach. Very unusual lighting as the core was pink from the setting sun backlighting the rain. The complex weakened greatly as it approached because of the stable air this far north from the earlier systems. I got off this panorama of its approach. Sorry 'bout the diagonal lines in the image, I didn't feel like photoshopping them out for hours...


What I was really going for was a lightning shot with the pink sky but it never works out that way. To get any lightning since it was so light out I had to turn the ISO waaaaayyyyyy down and jack up the apature just to get anything. Here is an anvil crawler I got, but my settings were just set too dark.

Of course, this is when the lightning really let up too. Figures. As it approached, there was one that shot down a half mile from me (standing in an open field at that), the first close one and it spooked me because there was only intracloud strokes before. I got off this last shot and moved next to the house. There is an anvil crawler towards the top, but its faint.


When I stationed near the house another went down in the same place as the last close one. Par for the course, there was a darn tree in the way. I really wanted to bring out the stroke with no chance of it whiting out hence why it was so dark. Stroke looks good though, well...the part that didn't get blocked out by the tree anyway!


Chip