No tornadoes yet, however last night a few storms developed near us and gave me the opportunity to attempt some more of my lightning photography. Turned out great, including lightning striking a tower!

I just wanted to get in a quick blog to update you all and let you know we will be chasing soon and to keep an eye on us. Last year, our first day chasing was all we needed to see our first and what happened to be our only tornado of the year. Hopefully we’ll have that same luck again on day one, except please can we get more than one tornado this year? We will be pushing hard for it, especially with the support. Thanks again to all who have supported us and as well as those who continue to support us.

Please pray for our success and safety at capturing nature’s beauty.

Thank you!

Andrew

Lately I’ve continued chasing the skies, in search for wonderful sunsets.  I’m continuing to work on my photography, and of course my main focus is still the sky above.  It’s nice and fun going after these shots, but I am definitely getting anxious for whats just over 3 months away.  Chase season is coming!!

For now, I leave you with some of my best sunset shots.

You can find all of my photography on http://andyskies.deviantart.com

Or on Facebook at Andy Skies Photography

The only snow I saw this year, it was nice though!

The great thing is, I wasn’t even planning on taking pictures.  I saw one flash out the window and not another for 5 minutes or so, but then came a consistency of one every couple of minutes and I had to give it a go.  Glad I did!! 

**Update  -  I went back outside for more, and got a couple others, but this one was the best of them. 

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***Update***

I was able to get a few more shots, some barely in the picture and some not worthy of sharing.  I did get this one below that was decent enough even though the camera moved slightly, Bah!

Many readers probably know we typically get storms along a frontal boundary.  While this was certainly true on 8/14/2010, I wanted to go a bit more in depth with the meteorology to explain how this particular front developed.

On the evening of August 14, 2010, an upper level trough was situated throughout central Canada which extended into portions of the Northern Plains.  As indicated by the 300 mb chart below, an elongated jet stream was present along northern Utah into portions of the great lakes.  A weak jet streak was defined in southeastern South Dakota.  In relation to Kansas, the general jet circulation provided an area of divergence across the region.  This is typically referred to as the right rear jet entrance zone, which nearly always means divergence aloft.

Further downward into the atmosphere, the 500 mb chart also showed the upper level trough with its center located in south central Canada.  A key point I would like point out here is to note the 200mb wind speeds vs. 500mb wind speeds across western Kansas.

Wind speeds were 45-55 knots at 300 mb and ~30 knots at 500 mb.  This wind shear at the mid-troposphere level is an indication of baroclinicity.  In other words, the change of wind speeds at these two levels tells us that there exists some kind of temperature graduation (more precisely a density gradation).  Furthermore at the 850mb level, a distinct thermal gradient existed across western Kansas.  Temperatures in southwest Kansas were close to 30 degrees C, whereas, in northwest Kansas temperatures were in the lower 20s.  The winds were also converging around sections of SW Kansas indicating some kind of frontal boundary.

This is also evident near the surface as shown by the stationary front extending through southern Kansas (Also note the wind barbs converging to where the frontal line is drawn).

As a result, the divergence aloft, provided by the right rear jet entrance zone, created areas of low-level convergence at the 850 mb and surface levels.   The end result of all these interactions was an area of upward vertical motion across southern Kansas, which provided the necessary lift for thunderstorm development.

In addition to the general area of upward motion, the atmosphere was also thermodynamically unstable. A quick look at surface base convective available  potential energy (SB CAPE) values showed an area of roughly 1000-3000 Joules per kilogram (J/KG) across southern Kansas.  Lapses rates were also ranging from 7-8 celusis per kilometer C/KM.

Finally, I would quickly point out that dewpoints were in the lower 60s along with theta-e, which is a measurement of heat/moisture, values in the 330s-350s Kelvin (K).

Therefore the three ingredients for thunderstorm development, which are  lift(the front), instability, and moisture, were all present.

Thunderstorms began developing near the frontal boundary around 3pm and intensified near Pratt, Kansas.  I began to note how much of these thunderstorms began to exhibit strong downdrafts.  In particular a developing storm west of Wichita caught my eye.  I quickly grabbed my fiancee and made our trek to Clearwater, Kansas.  As it turns out we got there just in time! Take a look at the series of radar images here.

In the first image, note the green line that curves downward from the storm.  This is an indication the leading edge of a downdraft associated with this storm.  We also call this the gust front because winds tend to change direction and become gusty (much like a true front).

In the second image, note a new storm quickly formed along this gust front east of Conway Springs.  The gust front also can act to initiate a storm much like a regular front would, only in a much smaller scale (and more unpredictable!) My position during the chase was just west of Clearwater, which you can clearly see the gust front passing my position.

Finally in the third radar image, the gust front becomes nearly cut off as the new storm develops in its wake.  All of these interactions occurred with in a time span of 25 minutes.  As if predicting weather wasn’t hard enough try and predict storm behaviors for the next few hours!

Once that storm formed along the outflow boundary it quickly diminished any interesting features in the sky.  I called off the chase and headed back to Wichita.  The entire chase time was probably close to an hour and required very little risk/time.  I believe we caught some of the best the storm had to offer and came home satisfied.

You can find storm pictures of this chase on our facebook page, which can be find at: http://storminskies.com/stormpictures

Tonight was the first night that I was able to grab the camera and go out to get some shots.  The night before had some good lightning, but I wasn’t at home so I couldn’t grab my camera.  Tonight however, I just happend to look out the window and see a flash, checked online to see a few spots show up on radar and decided to grab the camera and go.  This is what I got tonight.  I’m still learning how to do this more properly.  It wasn’t the most active lightning storm so I couldn’t test settings as much, but I’m sure I’ll get the opportunity to do more of this in the coming days.

Make sure to click bottom right and play it in 720p HD