Michael Carlson gets the kudos for the alert in the second consecutive successful activation of our Colorado Lightning Net as he, Verne, Jon, and myself got treated to a very big surprise on a day where no storms were forecasted for the Denver area. Several small, quick cells formed around the metro area late in the evening and managed to pop up and down through sunset when I finally left the house and began shooting. I wrapped about 10 good shots on the evening, most from my perch on Union and 6th right up the street. I settled for the northerly view and did quite well shooting over Union with traffic lights in the foreground. I won't go hog-wild on these shots til I get the okay to post, but I will throw one out that I managed from this evening.
As linked above, Michael Carlson who was the hreo of the night scored some great shots. You can
check those out here.
Lightning Net is 2 for 2 in the last week with some amazing opportunities. Its unfortunate these storms weren't moving much cause this could've been another chance at some downtown skyline shots. Regardless, these were definitely surprises considering the ongoing forecast for the metro area and it proves that sometimes you just have to be lucky to score!
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Monday, August 27, 2007
Howdy from I-25 in New Mexico somewhere between Santa Fe and Albuquerque. We're returning to Arizona after nearly a week of Colorado chasing and down days. Forecasts down here aren't terribly ambitious, and the models are showing things drying out by the end of the week, so this will likely be a one-to-two day stay before we return to Colorado near the weekend in hopes that our next departure will be with phase two of the project. We're basing out of Holbrook, Arizona this time as opposed to Flagstaff where we stayed last time which will make for a much shorter drive fortunately as we left Denver several hours later than I would've liked, hence me writing from here in New Mexico at 11pm. I'm figuring to be rolling in shortly after 2am if not closer to 3:00. Fortunately lightning is a later event, thus no early morning wake-up! Not to mention we're in the same hotel through Thursday which means no check-out, either. That'll be nice to do as I wa sup fairly early this morning for what turned out to be no good reason! Hahaha
I still haven't posted the images from the Denver chase last week, but will in the next couple of days... I have some real-world internet stuff to catch up on before I get to side projects, so that'll be my priority initially. Again, I'll let you know when its up!
So with that, off I go to watching road paint fly by. Hope to be in bed before 4am! We'll see! Ciao!
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Friday, August 24, 2007
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!
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Monday, August 13, 2007
After just over 800 miles, I have landed in Flagstaff safely. Looking to hang around the state through the end of the week making daily trips to do our thing. Its very exciting to be here and fortunately the heat isn't terrible in this part of the state compared to further south where excessive heat warnings and highs well over 110 are the norm. Updates may be fairly sporatic during the week as the day-to-day routine will be pretty standard, so unless something absolutely insane occurs, I'll probably post again sometime later in the week. None-the-less, the drive down was safe and I have arrived for the monsoon play in the southwest!!!
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Sunday, August 05, 2007
I finally was able to get some lightning shots from here in town this evening when a weak thunderstorm moved northeast out of Jefferson County. I set up at my Wadsworth and Quincy perch and shot away for about 30 minutes, scoring the four shots below. Other weak storms developed in the area, but I was flushed out due to rain. Below are the four shots..
The three blue tinted shots were the first lightning shots taken on the Nikon D40x which had the 18-70mm lens. The purple tinted shot was taken on the Nikon D70s with the 18-50mm lens. This was also the first shoot where I was shooting on two cameras at the same time.
Regardless, I am thrilled to have finally scored some shots here in town! They should be aired on Channel 7 in the next few minutes.
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Friday, August 03, 2007
A wet day across northeast Colorado yesterday as slow moving storms dumped a ton of rain in places. Ft. Collins took the worst of the flooding as a result of a storm which moved into the southwest parts of town around 7pm and dumped over 5 inches of rain in places. I wrote a story for thedenverchannel.com website which you can
view here. It has a lot of the details surround last night's deluge.
Much of the same expected today as a FLASH FLOOD WATCH has been issued for the Palmer Divide north along the I-25 corridor to the Wyoming border. Storms should start to fire in the mountains in the next couple of hours and move onto the plains this evening. Storms could reach severe limits further east, so that'll be closely watched.
I did miss out on a big event in the Ft. Collins area mostly due to time constraints and a very early day today. Had I not been up and at work so early this morning, I would've worked the trip north and played up there. On top of the flooding, the MCS which slowly moved east provided an awesome lightning show, so I am sorry I missed last night's show. Just too much stuff to do before I take off for Arizona next weekend. With me trying to wrap up real world stuff again, I'm hard pressed to squander myself enough time to keep myself out so late. Maybe next go around.
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