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If you want to know the details before this point, click here to read the morning activity. I'm now part way through this long 24 hours. Above are some towering cu taking forever to do anything. It's now early twilight, a great time to shoot the sky. It was really annoying me to have the good lighting and such crap for storms. This is just east of Schuyler NE btw. The road runs straight south, I'm looking southeast. There were some others south and southwest from here.
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This is why it is fun to shoot during twilight. Longer exposures look pretty cool during this time of early night. The stars now peaking out from the day, the higher clouds shining white, blurred from the long open shutter(1-2 minutes or so in this case).
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Like always, shooting near a town or city can be rewarding at night as well, while doing these longer shutter photos. The town being Schuyler in this case. This wasn't planned. I was simply staying west of them on the way home, hoping for twilight stuff, and this left me here, east of Schuyler(any further east and I'd be under them). So while the twilight fun was intentional, having Schuyler nearby to add color was just a bonus. I turned and shot this southwest direction as I saw some lightning flickering in something down there. Up to this point I'd been really frustrated by the lack of growth and the lightning that would come with that.
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Bout time! If that's not a strange scene I'm not sure what is. I think I'm at 10mm with this.
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Yay for lightning. I'm now losing my twilight fun, but still have the night stars, the town adding color, and the lightning.
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I will soon lose my stars to the growing anvils.
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So long stars.
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I'm only a mile north of highway 30, on a good gravel road(some n-s sections did not seem so great and I was concerned to be on those if it began to rain). No one had been by and "bothered" me for quite a good while. I then see lights coming from the east. They zoom by. It was someone on a 4 wheeler, perhaps checking to see who is hanging out around their farm. A bit later I see lights coming up behind me from the west. It was the same 4 wheeler coming back, only this time it's slowing to a stop. Most all encounters like this are normal and friendly, but some can indeed be strange. The guy wondered what I was up to, then seemed pretty interested in the fact I came "all the way" from Blair(not far compared to a typcial chase). He was also interested in how I track weather. I was tempted to say, "badly". He even mentioned the storms towards Blair, like, "weren't there storms near Blair though". I was like, yeah, I suck. After a couple minutes he was off, saying he didn't need to bug me any longer. It's strange, usually when someone is about to stop I half sigh to myself, wondering what I'l be asked and how they'll even act at the answers(occasionally some give you a strange look, but by far most are really interested). Then once they stop, it's rarely a bad experience but rather kind of fun talking about the storms. In this case it also helped he was helping my shot. I had the cam mounted to my window, so I had to snap a couple while he was parked there in the side of the frame. I never looked into the camera, but was hoping he was in fame. I thought he would have been more in it than he was, but it works. Too bad no cg's during the couple stills I got like this. Not long after he leaves, I head for home. The lightning was quickly becoming the in-cloud variety, not that fun to photograph. The drive home sucked. I knew it would, since I had to drive into storms to do so. It gets rather hard to see the road in heavy rain when they don't seem to be able to paint new lines on them! This seems much worse than it used to be. Then there are the complete idiots who refuse to turn their high beams off for you. I only give them a warning shot back if I'm pretty sure they are their high beams and not just pointed high. I gave this one SUV a shot a half mile away. Nothing. I gave a second at about a quarter mile away. Nothing. As I get closer I can see two lamps on in each headlight and it was blindingly obvious they were high beams. I laid the third on them as I drove by. I didn't care if we hit head on by this point, I was getting pissed. It's hard enough to see as it is, paintless(practically) wet blacktop in pouring rain. Add in blinders coming at you and you just can't see where you are on the road. Hell it was that way passing people without their brights on. Nothing is worse than the corners, when lights from oncoming traffic comes right on in your window. You hit the corner and are like, yeah I know where I'm at here. And yeah I know, I put myself there. Once to highway 91 things wouldn't get any better. Now lightning was strobing like mad, making it hard to see. Rain wasn't bad now, but the road was much worse. There is some construction on it and it was rutted badly. There were also sections with water covering the pavement. I hit the first one about 55 and thought I was flying off the road for sure. I was rather furious at the drive by this point. I could see some headlights well behind me, and knew if I slowed down I'd get to deal with them shining in my back window, refusing to pass in the rain. So I tried to stay fast enough to keep them back there further. I was fine driving on the center line, as that wasn't in a rut. This was the case minus the couple areas with water across the whole road. |
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Thanks to the crappy driving conditions I'd not refreshed the radar for sometime now. While coming into town I talk to Bob, who is working, but outside watching a big shelf come in. He said it was pretty sweet looking, but I'd not yet been able to see it. All I could see were some rediculous amounts of lightning flashes, just north of town. I reload radar and see the big mess about to hit from the north and from the west. I get further into town and can make out the structure now. It simply looked NASTY. This was a very beefy, low, wall of clouds along this apparently brand new shelf. I pull off right away at the Taco Bell on the west side of town. I grab the cam, flick the ISO to 800 to try and freeze the image(shorter shutter needed thanks to higher ISO). I lift it to the window, look through...and....crap.....100% fogged over. I wipe it off, try again, bam again....fog. I try again, but this time rub hard to get some friction/heat on the lens. Cleaned off, try again.....bam...fog! I couldn't believe it. So I go to grab the video camera. Where is my video camera!!! I was tossing crap everywhere, making sure I looked over each area of the car before looking in another. Still, it wasn't turning up. I did this 3 or 4 times before I found it. It was behind my seat, but I evidently felt it wrong while reaching back there. I used it for a moment, before coming to realize I HAVE to get a still of this and be ready for some close bolts, as there'd already been a couple. I crank the heater and leave the lens on it for a moment. I then wipe it off and try again...wala! The above is one of the 800 ISO shots I took, looking east into town. There's some flare issues thanks to the light above me and some moisture on the lens. You can make out the grungy storm in the center and right.
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Nasty storm! It was now sending out insanely close cg after insanely close cg. Guess what comes with that though? Freaking rain.
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I can't believe I got what I did of this one. I wasn't even trying for lightning because I couldn't mount the lens now. I had to hold it, with the mount(not attached to the window) resting on the door. I was framing the shot when I saw the flash start. I immediately pushed the shutter(camera was still on manual, on bulb, so I controlled the shutter length with the push length). Pretty much the same moment of the flash......craaaaaaacckkk!.....loud thunder. This looked to hit very near the Super Foods store in town, 1.5 blocks from here. I sooo wish I had been pointed more to the left, but am still extremely lucky I even got this, since it was "quick draw'd". Those white drop looking things on the left aren't on the lens. They are rain drops, lit up by the flash during their fall. The crazy thing about this is that I was on 800 ISO at the time!...and wide open with the aperture. This "should" be all blown out. I think the reason that it is not, is because it was quick draw'd, so I did not get any of the initial stroke(can't push the button before seeing the flash when this is how it was captured), but likely just the tail end of it, or some return stroke. Even if it is not landing in the frame, it's certainly one of the neater bolts I've captured....and certainly the closest. Oh yeah, to give an idea on distance, I'm at 13mm here!
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Since it was now raining I was forced to find a shelter to shoot from or just be screwed. It was now simply amazing the number of bolts landing IN town(not the above). While driving here I called Bob back, who was still at work, and we had to laugh at how bonkers it was going. As I'm driving, a super close bolt hits to my south. I was just north of where he works in town at this moment. The second I see that flash I hear it boom through his phone. There was no seperation. I hear it not through my phone, a fraction of a second after the flash. I was like dude, I heard that through the phone a split second before I heard it here. He said he noted two that close to him this night. When I say that close I'm talking most likely within a block....sersiously. And that's just the uber close ones. He captured two sweet ones probably 2-3 blocks away, lol! His were in the frame. One has a branch that looks like it is on this side of some powerlines in his shot. If so that branch was damn close to him. Anyway, the last 10 minutes or so have been SICK with close bolts and tons of them. I get here and setup, missing several in the process. I was keeping that shutter going and going(over and over), now on ISO 100 and stopped down some, since I could mount the camera. This allowed for the longer shutter and likelyhood of capturing something. I see what looks like maybe a couple dots on the images. I take the camera down from my window to wipe off the lens(even though I'm under the canopy out of the rain now). Guess what happens? The closest bolt I've ever seen hits near that store towards the left side of the picture. The flashing and the cracking were 100% simultaneous. It was nuts. I was shaking slightly for the next 5-10 minutes. It just has a way of scaring the crap out of you, even if it's not that scary. Sort of like someone surprising you when you weren't ready. And............aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh for not having my camera going at that very moment! I could not believe it. I was like, oh no you din't. If any of those truckers were awake and watching what I was doing, they had to be laughing at that. Here I am, shirt in hand wiping off the lense after taking several unsuccessfl shots.........baaaaaaaaammm....right where I'd been pointed and seriously a block from me. If anyone has seen Dean Cosgrove's video of a close bolt hitting a fence, near two poles, it was just like that, only I'd have had a still of the thing. *Bangs head on desk* Btw that bolt of Dean's is at the end of one of the tornado video classics videos, during the credits. Sigh, and it takes sooooo long to get these real close cg barages at night. It's been a very long time it seems.
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It finally lets up, but there was more stuff out west heading this way. Myself and Bob, now off work, head up to the now normal shooting location under the picnic area dome thingy. I get there first and two cops have a car stopped in and look to be searching it. I pull over anyway and the one comes over and parks behind me, leaving his headlights on. I say I'm here to shoot lightning. He asks if I shoot for the paper or just freelance. I say freelance. He informs me the park is closed at midnight. What!? I asks if there are any signs saying that and he says no, it is a city ordinance. Great I thought, there goes the best area to shoot lightning in the rain. Funny the cop that came up there last time never said that to us. He talked a bit and left that time. So anyway, this cop offers us another place to shoot on Skyline Drive. We head up there and give it a shot. The above was taken there. It's a good spot, minus the lack of protection from the rain like we had up at the other place. Sigh. And how much sense does it make to not be able to go to a park, with a lit up picnic area, but be told to go hang out in a dark residential area at 2 a.m.? It makes as much sense as states that require you to wear a seatbelt in your car, but let you ride a motorcycle with no helmet(think about that one.....if you have to put a seatbelt on, should you really be allowed on a bike at all????.....such a stupid law....one I've actually been stopped and ticketed for...stopped just for not having the belt on...which I normally do wear, as being ejected from my car sort of scares me). It brought back all the good ol skate boarding days, getting kicked out of place after place.
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The activity hadn't been all that great once we got to this area. Around 4:20 a.m. we decided to call it a night(or a morning?). I think I was saying something to Bob about, well we'll head home and it will pound away right after. Then I start my car................errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr or so I'd hoped! Car won't start...DOH! Apparently a bit too much laptop and inverter, and not enough running engine today. Usually my inverter will warn me by giving me a beep that it's not pulling enough amps, when the battery gets a bit low. I think I'd shut it off and had been leaving the radio run. That and I ws charging my camera battery through the inverter, not needing nearly the juice the laptop did. It'd turn over pretty good then just make a clicking noise. Crap. Bob was about half way to his car when this was going on. I yelled back, "I guess I don't have to worry about going home and missing anything." I'd been motivated to staty up till daybreak anyway. I decided to just sit with the car another hour, then call my dad for a jump start. I had no real idea when they wake up anymore, but figured it had to be around 5:30. Not long after Bob left, this area started to pop away towards Omaha. Just looking at the sky I knew it would offer some cool night longer shutter images.
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So, I'm now sitting in the road, next to my dead car, in this residential area. It dead ends right up there at the end of the shot, so there really wasn't any traffic to speak of. I would still check behind me from time to time to make sure nothing was coming. Well I turn around and something is sitting 20 feet behind me staring at me. Just a cat, perhaps a strange one. It sat there in the other lane just watching me, for a couple minutes. Dead car, now an interested cat, could the night get stranger? Yeah, though it would be a while.
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This display to the south let up after a while. I then sat in my silent car and waited. I could have ran the radio but kept thinking the battery would magically build up enough ooompf to get me started if I waited a bit. Around 5:20 I finally give my dad a call and ask him to bring the jumper cables to this area. He arrives and I'm running again in no time. I needed to let my car run for a while now, so I stopped out at their house to see the pups. I get home and am asleep around 7:30. This would be a short sleep.
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It's almost been 24 hours since I woke up and started this whole day. That's my aparment complex and those are firetrucks lol. So, I went to sleep at 7:30 in the morning, right. I wake up around 10:30, groggy as hell, to this nasty smell of an electrical fire. I walk around my apartment and can see a bit of smoke in the air. My computer is running fine, tv, vcr, other tv, ac....etc...all seems fine. The problem was I was more and more convinced something was seriously on fire somewhere in the complex. The smell was growing horrid. I walk outside hoping it was just something in the air and to see if I could see flames in the empty apartment above me. They'd also been working on the ac for that apartment yesterday. I see nothing and the air smells fine out there. Back inside to the haze. The next thing that comes to mind was the insane lighting show IN town, not many hours before.. I thought, wiring in the walls is on fire somewhere. It seemed the most likely answer because it smelled so strongly like it was an electrical fire and everything in the apartment seemed to be working fine. I thought this place could be in flames any minute now, do I call the fire department or the owner. I call the owner first. He arrives and checks out the one above me. It was fine. Him and another guy look all over mine, looking rather concerned too. They finally call the fire department. I'd already been grabbing things I need to have(like my computer and all my images....yeesh I need to back things up somewhere other than just my apartment). I'd already had Chase in the cat carrier, ready to go too. Once they called the fire department I left, taking this stuff to my parent's house. I wasn't taking any chances with all my camera gear, images, nor my cat obviously. (My sister took the above photo for me.) Turns out it was the compressor to the fridge. I think what it was was the fan blowing on that compressor as the fridge was working....but maybe not. Seems like it had to be that. I don't see how this could be a coincidence and not be related to the lighting in town earlier either. Bob works about 2 blocks east of where I live. He noted two times there was a brilliant flash to their west, with the thunder the same time as the flash. Seems it had to be related to the lightning. Anyway, a fairly strange, long 24 hours. Things ain't slowed down a lot since then either. Was up till 5 the next morning again, trying to shoot lightning. The next night was the high paced chase in nw MO ,with a tornado and snapping powerpoles behind me. |
