Bigtime storms rolled through Denver late last night in a rare show which brought intense lightning, heavy rains, and small hail to parts of the metro area. The first show was the afternoon show when storms rolled off the foothills and blasted east with strong winds, hail, and lightning. Those storms chilled the air greatly as temps fell into the 50s under a brisk wind. The crew I've been lightning-hunting with had just chased Wyoming and Nebraska the day before and returned to Colorado to chase the setup yesterday.
When our beautiful cell became a mess, we returned to Denver where we called it a day. It was after dinner for us when the second show came through shortly after 11pm when a small cell popped up over the northern sections of town and moved east. With the official part of the day done, I ventured out to one of my perches here in town and shot some lightning overlooking downtown and finally nailed some shots I've been waiting years to get; lightning with the downtown skyline. As you'll see below, it wasn't terribly dramatic, but certainly a good nightcap to a great chasing day.
I came home afterwards to get those images pulled from my camera when I looked on radar to see an impressive line of storms moving in from the west. I activated our lightning net with a "it's Christmas time" message and ran up to Arvada to get set up at the Red Rocks Arvada campus. Unfortunately I was having a tough time getting any great shots due to the insane amounts of rain coming down. Below are a couple I squandered before getting pummelled by the downpour.
As you can tell, the bolts were not very dramatic due to the rain. I evacuated my overlook in despair as many good, close strikes occured and it seemed everytime I turned the camera, they vanished. I gave up the perch for lightning further south and headed out of Arvada where I began to encounter hail on the road with some flooding. I stopped and shot some flood video in Wheat Ridge in one of the usual areas, then scoped out other areas to find little water remaining. A few piles of hail were all that remained.
Continuing south, I headed to my Alameda overlook and shot much better shots looking southeast. I also mounted my video camera on my second tripod and shot some video of the strikes over southern Denver. Below are a few of the photos I snapped..
Finally, the storms barrelled east out of town and I finally returned home shortly before 3am where I processed video and stills til well after 4am before finally getting a couple hours of sleep. What an amazing evening with such a very rare event. Just about everyone in the city heard this storm and probably was in for a treat if they weren't reeling from not sleeping. I'm sure feeling it today.
I intend at some point to publish a log for last night's event which will include mileage on the day chase which lead up to this. I have nearly two-dozen images from last night's storms, including flood and hail shots from the video, so I'll be working on that in my free time. I'll mention here in the blog when that is finally accomplished.
An FYI; the project I am working on limits the amount of information I can publish or release, including media and/or my wherabouts. However, last night's event was "off-the-clock" persay, and thus I can post my ventures in detail here as it was unrelated to the project I am working on. I am slated to be done with this in mid-September and will return to my normal barrage of useless posts. Until then, bare with me and keep watching for flukes like last night! Wowza!
