Storm Chase Photo Highlights
As I wrote, last week I was out in the plains storm chasing. I landed in Denver on May 23 (the day after my classes ended), drove south to Pueblo, and then the next day got on beautiful storms near Carlsbad, New Mexico (lightning photos below). Scott Fisher joined me on May 25, and after driving around in the fog under a tornado watch all morning I'm glad he got to see the big mushroom-cloud looking supercell you see below. The 26 I was with every other chaser on three tornado-warned storms in a row near Garden City Texas. I ended up in the hail core of one (see the video) and got some shots of the other storms, and ended up in San Angelo, which got pounded (see flooding photo from the next morning). Things died down for a couple days after that so I headed north and stumbled across the abandoned Baker hotel in Mineral Wells, Texas. I stayed in Wichita Falls, Texas and the next morning saw the the devastation brought about by a five-year drought. Lake Arrowhead, Wichita Falls' drinking water supply, was at around 25% and where I was shooting photos I should have been under about 10 feet of water. I headed up north through Oklahoma City, where I stopped in to see the Oklahoma City National Memorial, and also visited the site in El Reno where, tragically, three storm chasers were killed a year ago. I drove up through beautiful stretch of western Kansas and Nebraska, and visited Toadstool Geologic Park. I then did a bit of sight seeing in the beautiful Black Hills, where I saw both Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse monument. I visited Devil's Tower and then the weather fired up again and I got on some crazy-looking storms near Gillette, Wyoming. I chased one last day in Kansas (last two storm photos and rainbow) and then headed back to Denver (mountain sunset photo) and flew home Monday.
Here's a few photo highlights (click on any thumbnail to enlarge); I have many more on my Google photo pages.
Update June 6, 2014--Video Highlights below.