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I now have an interesting stat going for this year so far. I'm batting a thousand on getting a supercell on each chase, with no busts yet(jinx). Not just that, but they are managing to be in different states each time but one. Just too bad almost all of them suck, or are at least far from great. March 30th in OK was the best one. Let me try and recall each chase and where the supercell was. March 30th supercell west of Oklahoma City. March 31st, long lived supercell in southern OK along the Red River...almost put one down, but mostly sucked. April 9th Abilene TX long lived supercell. April 24th long lived supercell in northwest Kansas. May 1st fairly long lived supercell Yankton to Sioux Falls South Dakota. May 6th fairly long lived supercell in northern Nebraska. May 13th long lived supercell se KS into sw MO(this one...yes I used MO to get it in another state, lol...plus I liked that town name). I even saw what could be argued as a mini-supercell in sw IA coming home April 10th after the chase on the 9th. I wasn't exactly chasing, mostly just coming home and saw it on the way. One could just very easily argue that one had mini-supercell characteristics as it moved north with the deep sfc low there. So each chase that would be OK, OK, TX, IA, KS, SD, NE, MO....lol. 8 chases, each had a main supercell, and in 7 different states. It's highly annoying how little I have to show for it...since they mostly have not been great. I know when the good ones happen, I will be nowhere near them, screwing up on something else. I happily at least don't have a lot of regrets yet(something new!). Anyway, I just noticed this all a few nights ago and found it interesting. I joked I'd wind up in Missouri on this one, since I seemed to be needing a new state to see a supercell in each time. I was letting it go at Pittsburg KS before it teased me east into MO, as if to say, hey....come to Missouri. I didn't do it for that "stat" as I was honestly letting it go as I drove north into Pittsburg. The new state supercell on a different chase just happened, lol. Believe me, at $3.80 a gallon you aren't going to see me going out of my way for "stats". Filling up in Chanute for that much, I wanted to beat the crap out of the pump. I was like, "what'd you say?"....."$3.80?"...."why I'll......".........BAM. That's what I felt like anyway. I really only chased this one because there looks to be a big down period till May 22nd'ish. Moisture surging north with 50 knots of mid-level flow actually over a cold front, I figured what the heck. I sure didn't expect much....not that I'd call the results much either. As I got closer to se KS I started to feel it was quite possibly a better play than much of OK, only thanks to a little less cloud cover, and a pretty good little north-south segment on the boundary just into KS. Had I lived further south, I am certain I would not have been tempted enough to leave that option and come up to KS....that is for sure. It just didn't look all that bad as the day went on. It also looked pretty narrowed down, with a thermal axis nosing in from the sw right to the southern portion of the n-s front before it started to turn more southwest. But then as a line of crappers fired on it, I really though a big line would come out of it. I was indeed surprised to see it evolve into the one supercell, even if it sucked. The convection just south of it vanished, and the one north of it got sent flying north rapidly into others. Then all that was left was this soon-to-be supercell, moving almost straight east.
It was far from interesting until about Parsons Kansas. I'm east of Parsons above. At this time it actually had a big curling RFD with a bowl lowering back in there where it should be. I thought this had a legit chance to tornado, but I don't believe it got it done here. It was tornado warned soon after this.
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These are from video by the way.
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I think it is pretty hard for a storm to take on this look and that not be a rotating funnel. Guess it's possible, but not likely. Just had a nice coil all the way back into that.
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That appearance did not last too terribly long, before that bowl became smashed up against the gust front of the storm. What now got my interest were some hairy CGs hitting nearby. This one hit rather close, off to my left. It's bad when you see the branching, but not the main bolt(close). As close as this hit, by nights end two others will have hit even closer(one sort of on video, the other on the still cam). These were mostly happening well downstream from the updraft base, to the east....thanks to the highly sheared over nature of the updrafts. So I kept trying to be east enough to get some of them. Wound up best ones I got were much closer to the storm, or even behind it on the one(that one had a better curling rfd I was in, with towers on that above me). All day long the tornado chances with this storm looked nill, so I figured go for close bolts and go home with something. Right after this you could see a huge, long, cold shelf pushing south to the northeast of the main area(right side of image above and on off the frame). The whole thing lined out to the sw. Problem was a new cut started in well to the northeast, unknownst to me for a while. I've seen a storm act like this numerous times now though. The forward flank down draft(rain core) will often create it's own new base to its south or southeast. It'll tease with that idea for awhile, then pretty soon, that whole deal is the dominant area. Soon as this southwest area was smashed and lined out, that ne side took over. Setups with linear shear, with just speed shear, but not a lot of turning, love to do this....usually just once. This setup had some decent low level turning, but it was so weak and shallow(veered by 850mb)...I don't think it did a whole lot. Storm just acted a whole lot like ones you see in no directional, speed shear only setups. It also had some issues with capping I think, in the 700mb area. Updrafts were never that intense, which is partially why they were leaning over as severely as they were.
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Anyway, now into Missouri east of Pittsburg KS. That new area to the ne had a real nice rfd cut now, as well as a wnw-ese inflow band...plus a lowering I am not thinking ever became tornadic.
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I go east and something hits really close to me the same time as this bolt hits off in the distance. From flash to boom only 9 frames of video goes by. I've figured that out to mean the bolt creating the big boom, out of frame, hit about 100 yards from me....or like being on the goal line of a football field and lightning hitting the other goal line. I saw one later come from the updraft and go west and hit the ground. I almost think that is what this one was. Arced out of the updraft and came down near me. A couple seconds after that boom you can hear a more faint roll of thunder, surely from the above bolt happening at the same time. Sound travels at roughly 1 mile per 5 seconds, so it would make sense.
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I shoot a few stills, not getting much, then race east again and north to Lamar MO. I did not think I was far enough east for close bolts, but put the cam on the window and tried anyway. Close one hits, but it's right of frame. Dang it!
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Then I get this bad boy. It's easily the closest bolt I have a still of(at least for it being completely in the frame and not taken through my apartment window like another close one...which ghosted to hell thanks to the window). This is a little cropped in from a 10mm shot. I need to stop using the 10mm for lightning. It just makes things look much further than they are....though it's easier to not miss close bolts using it. If I had to guess, I'd say it hit about 2 blocks away. I'm REALLY dumb for not mounting the video camera too. No reason not to, once the cam is mounted and the shutter is being held open by the cable release. Sigh. Video would have been sick on this. I'm stopped down to F11, with 100 ISO on bulb for shutter. F11 would have been enough....had it not strobed probably 8 times. It was still strobing after the crash of thunder first hit. I saw it and had time to think, YES I got that.....and enough time to think.....STOP STROBING....IT'S GOING TO BLOW OUT THE SHOT. It was long enough duration to think those two things, but not quite enough to make me think of releasing the cable release so the camera wasn't capturing each of those strobes too. That strobing blew out the main channel, and the portions near the cloud base, since it acts like a reflector up there. When storms mostly suck, my next goal is to get very close lightning on still images. I hope I get good at this, and this was a learning experience. No more 10mm first off. I think I'll stick with my 17-40L at 17mm. Next thing is get my stupid sensor cleaned. If I stop down much I see circles thanks to microscopic dust on there that doesn't blow off. This may have been fine at F16, though the other branches weren't terribly bright. Other thing will be to have the hand on the release and maybe just release right after seeing a good bolt. That would have saved this one. Then again, it's been a looooooong time since I've seen a bolt strobe that many times on something, so it's not that frequent something strobes as many times as this one did.. While it was strobing there was very obvious fire shooting off whatever it was hitting. A wild guess says from first flash to the last one was probably almost 2 seconds. Below is a full sized crop.
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At least the 100% crop shows the distance/perspective a little better. You can see the 4 lane highway I'm on in front of me. That other branch is well behind that power pole. If it blows out the sensor it can make the pole ahead of it white. See how where it crosses behind the pole it's pinched a bit? Same with where it goes behind those trees. Pole and trees just block some of the light, hence the pinched look there. Might look like it's in front of that, but it's not. Where it is hitting in the field is pretty close though. I really wonder what it was hitting, as it pulsed away on it, igniting it into fire. The fire was not there at all when it stopped, which sort of makes me think metal. For whatever reason, watching it at the time, something metal was in my head.
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I then drove into Lamar, trying to find a place to shoot any twilight scenes. There was also a half moon out, shining down from straight above.
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After screwing around just south of town, not finding any good spots, I find this place into town. Town lights making the clouds red, as they block out my storm.
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Couldn't quite get the full moon in the shot, at least with a horizontal shot. You can see it shining on the clouds in the upper right, as well as that lens flare from it. It's 9:30 pm and I'm in far sw MO....time to drive back home....weeeee. This moon gives a pretty good perspective on what driving home can be like after a chase. It's straight up as much as it can be. It was so cool as I get into town at 3:00 am. It was oddly yellow/orange...unlike any orange color I've ever seen from it before. It was in the upper 30s now and rather "dewy". It was just above the horizon now, about to set. It was cool coming into town over the bridge, as it was lined up perfectly with main street, right between the lights. I was like, good grief that looks cool, I should stop and get a zoomed in still. BUT, I'm sorry, at 3 a.m. after 800 miles, the motivation to do so is not there.
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4 minute youtube video from the chase, mostly for the few close lightning bolts. I do not know why the video is a little garbled up after those first couple lightning bolts. It is not at all screwed up on the actual tape if you play it back and watch. When I capture though, it insists on garbling it up right in there. I captured it over again and it did it again, but in a little different areas. Hmmm, strange. On that close crash of thunder...I see that 2nd bolt briefly in the slow-mo clip, but wasn't sure that wasn't just some camera-caused reflection/ghost doing that. Not sure I think that is the unseen close strike.
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