1/30/12 Rapid City Sunset

Nothing terribly amazing but it was pretty none-the-less. On an attempt to update my blog more often and to keep it updated with pictures I have most recently taken, I will post this account. Went up on Skyline Dr. again to watch the sunset. It was very warm today so it was an excuse to breathe some fresh air. There were some high clouds around as well that I thought would give the sunset a nice touch.


Here is the white balance warmer...


The high clouds began to thin out...


Clouds further south brought out some pink...


Mid-level clouds were advecting in from the northwest. At the outer edges some weak kelvin-helmholtz waves developed with the wind speed (shear) differences from the base of the cloud to the top...


The waves dissipated not long after...


The moon was nearly first quarter tonight as well and was quite bright. I tried to get the sneaky "lunar x" along the night/day line on the southern part of the moon formed from the shadows in the valleys but couldn't get it out. Its darn hard to accurately zoom into the moon and have it be in focus with a 100-300mm lense!



Well, that is all for now! Am hoping to get up to Spearfish area in the next week or so and take some pictures of ice off the waterfalls up there. Stay tuned for more!

Thanks for visiting!
Chip

10/23/11 A jaunt through the park

It was Sunday evening I was going for a run around the lake and park that I live next to. It just so happened to be a great sunset and the fall colors were out in all force (and have seemingly been for a month now it). I had my cell phone and did a bit of editing because it sucks with the midtones and they were way to bright. I think they came out pretty darn well. Enjoy!

Gradually you see rays from the cloud shadows (crepuscular rays) and then a pretty pink finale right next to my apartment. In the last picture, if you look real close, you can see a whole family of deer in the bottom right, they didn't show up very well though. It is the local family that I see almost everyday around my place. They are around at all hours of the day and even bed up against the apartment. I am going to get fresh venison one of these days...


























Hope ya liked the shots!

Chip

A conglomerate of storm photos from the past two weeks.

Over the last two weeks, there has been quite a bit of severe weather in the north/north central region of Ohio. Through the period I played with storms on four different occurrences to get some shots. Below are a few from each of the four days.

Sunday, July 18th:

Quick moving squall line moved through southern Summit County. I blew through it four different times, shot out ahead of it again, then let it overtake me. Lightning was all shrouded in rain so nothing in that department. A very pretty sunset also followed.

When it was first taking shape:

The second intercept showed just how narrow the line was as the setting sun was breaking through the rain back-illuminating the shelf cloud:

Once the line finally moved through, the sun's final light of the day provided a pretty, multi-cloud deck sunset with the remaining anvil and low level cumulus:


Wednesday, July 21st:

A few isolated storms developed and quickly died during the early afternoon hours around northern Ohio. Around 2pm a storm went up near Sandusky, just offshore on Lake Erie. This storm developed off of an old outflow boundary from one of the dead storms from earlier. This storm latched onto the boundary as it moved southeastward onto shore. If it remained on the boundary, it could remain established for quite some time, and that is in fact what it did. The storm moved further southward into Medina, where my original intercept was. Remaining on the boundary, the storm looked very supercellular on radar. After core-punching the storm westward, here is the view of it looking eastward. With such copious amounts of rain and hail, I decided to just stick behind it and watch the base from there. It was moving rapidly so keeping it sight soon became an issue. It eventually shelfed out in Stark County and finally died after trekking over a hundred miles.

Here is the storm looking eastward into it. Notice the large amount of hail within it and the rain/hail foot:


Very strong winds also occurred with this storm. Here is a damaged barn in Wayne County, on 604 a few miles east of route 3:

Friday, July 23rd:

After a race in Lakeville, I headed northward to Rittman where I met up with a friend and we shot some lightning just after the gust fronts passing. Not a whole lot to mention about the intercept. Not much lightning that was shootable once again because of the rain, but it went well into the night after the storms passing.

Lightning striking on the other side of the field we were in...behind my camera, but the backlit gust front looked cool. The very edge of it is lit up by city lights in the distance:

Got a few anvil crawlers but most not very prominant with the rain. Here is one of the best of the day:

Saturday, July 24th:

By far the best day with storm firing along Lake Erie around 5pm and moving south/southeast through the evening. Set off to meet Angela again in Rittman but first, I let it catch me at my house. Alot of wind damage this day as well, however we didn't get to see any as it was mostly pretty far to our east.

Here is the rain shafts along the developing shelf cloud over the neighbors:


Shelf cloud/gust front over ran me by the time I got to Rittman. The edge of it is in the left with the core to the right:
Let the storm's core go over us in the middle of nowhere in Wayne County. A TON of lightning with this storm and they were hitting darn close. With the time of day and rain, nothing was coming out. I waited till dark and was treated to a beautiful updraft being lit up by lightning:

The best, money-shot of the night was the gorgeous sunset. The anvil with some low cumulus still trying to fire being lit up by the sun was amazing. In the anvil to the right, there was some pretty mammatus as well, though they aren't shown well in this panorama:


With all the racing lately, I have gotten alot of cars and will try to get a few on here at somepoint. In the meantime, check out Ohio Valley Dirt Track Racing for them.

Upcoming photoshoots? One word, and its a favorite of mine, PERSEIDS! They are already starting and expect me out in the country darn near every night its clear!

-Chip

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