On Saturday the 27th a few isolated severe storms went up off the Black Hills. They were high based and small, but were quite pretty. I played with the storm that went just south of the city, and even dropped some small hail at my house (after I left, the subi isn't gonna see hail falling if I have my way).
Here is the first look.
An my it had a healthy looking rain free base as it neared my location:
The rain and hail shaft can barely be seen in the above, but as it passed to my north, it became much more visible and would be the main attraction with the cell. At the time radar indicated around 2" hail, and there were several reports of 1.75" hail at this time:
Once it crossed the highway, these two little buggers showed up in the sunlight:
The furthest south rainbow was very dominate and on display for a long time. Here it is in its full stretch:
The different individual shafts of hail and rain falling out of the cloud base were amazing:
The right side showed itself for a bit too (I am lazy and didn't edit out the splattered bugs on the windshield):
I followed the storm on a bit but decided that was the best show it was going to do as the convection was getting soft, and let it go. Here is the final look before I turned my back and headed west home:
On Monday the 29th, a late evening linear MCS made its way across eastern Wyoming and western South Dakota after originating in Montana earlier in the day. It put on a decent light show and provided the first opportunity I have ever had to take lightning shots here. I immediately went for the towers I see every day. Convientially I have a great view only a few blocks down the road.
First shot I got, I was planning for them to be super bright and had the ISO as far down as it goes along with the aperature way up to counter what I thought would be a blinding shot. Yea, it wasn't so the best shot of the night (CG wise) came with those settings:
I also got two cloud to cloud (CC) flashes as well. Mind the raindrops...I haven't configured a device to stand under or hang off my window that allows me to shoot in the rain yet, so they are taken through the windshield:
Not a bad first week. I am excited to see if or what the small second season of chasing brings about out here the next few months!
I will try to have another blog up soon with some shots of my trip out here that included stops in Notre Dame, Iowa State, and the grand city of Mitchell, SD. In the meantime though, feel free to bug me to get it up!
Thanks for looking!
Chip
