Kevin Palmer

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  • On the longest day of the year, a thunderstorm came rolling through Antioch, Illinois. Lightning is a lot more challenging to capture during the day. At night you can use a long exposure of 30 seconds and try to catch a bolt of lightning in that time frame. But during the day, you have to use shorter exposure times. This storm was dark enough that I could use a 2 second exposure and eventually caught these twin strikes.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: June 21, 2011
    Day Lightning
  • This was the best lightning storm I saw all year. A couple thunderstorms passed very close, but the rain stayed out of the way. Sometimes I stack lightning shots, but this is just one exposure. The two lightning crawlers occurred about 15 seconds apart within the 30 second exposure. After chasing some storms to the south and coming back home I think I saw about 10 thunderstorms on this day. There are often deer in this field at night, you can see a couple under the bright streetlight.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: June 25, 2013
    Night Crawler
  • After the heavy rain of a thunderstorm passed, this lightning slowly crawled across the sky. This type of lightning is amazing to watch since it lasts up to 5 seconds. The power lines above my head were buzzing at the time of this shot.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: July 18, 2012
    Electric Night
  • Even after driving up Highway 14 dozens of times, I almost always stop at this scenic overlook. It’s where the Bighorn Mountains meet the endless plains stretching across eastern Wyoming and Montana. The towns of Dayton, Ranchester, and Sheridan are seen thousands of feet below and it’s a popular spot for launching hang gliders. For years I’ve wanted to capture a good lightning storm from here. But it required just the right storm, one that comes in from the northwest in a path parallel to the mountains. It needed to be close enough to light up the valley, but far enough to stay out of danger and out of most of the rain. It also needed to be predictable, so I could get there in time. At 10PM sheets of rain began to envelop the ridges to the north one by one. Then this brilliant flash illuminated the foothills and switchbacks just before the lights of Dayton disappeared into the downpour. I’ve always loved the challenge of capturing something that lasts a fraction of a second and preserving it in a picture.
    Electric Rain
  • Lightning activity picked up while I was driving so I stopped at the end of a driveway and took a few pictures until I caught this bolt.
    Electric Hills
  • Electric Peak in Yellowstone National Park is the highest in the Gallatin Range. It lies directly on the border of Montana and Wyoming, exactly halfway between the equator and the north pole. The 10,969 feet high peak got it's name after the first men to climb the peak were struck by lightning near the summit.
    High Voltage
  • Before I could count to 2 came the ear-shattering boom. That put the landing point less than half a mile away. But it wasn't just one. An intense barrage of lightning bolts rained down outside of Sheridan. These 3 evenly-spaced bolts all struck within 1 minute, which I combined into a single image. The foreground wasn't the best but my options were limited. Shooting from inside my car, wind-driven rain pelted the windows. I strategically parked my car so I could point my camera out the window facing away from the wind. But it was still a lot of wiping down the lens and dashboard between every shot. Some of the bright spots in the air are raindrops, frozen by the brilliant flashes of light. Even though it was a rainbow that got me out the door, the electrical activity soon stole the show. It's been awhile since I've had an opportunity to capture lightning from this close.
    Close Enough
  • This severe thunderstorm developed rapidly east of Sheridan. Usually lightning is very difficult to capture during the day. But it was frequent enough that my camera captured 3 bolts in the time lapse.
    Dusty Strike
  • On this evening I headed up into the hills to watch lightning. The first storm that made me head out the door wasn't any good for pictures, since most of the lightning was intra-cloud. But then I watched another cell pop up to my south. As this updraft exploded into the starry sky, it started producing positive lightning strikes. Positive lightning accounts for 5-10% of all lightning, and is up to 10X more powerful than negative strikes with a peak discharge of 1 billion volts. It originates from the top of a thundercloud and travels through miles of air before striking the ground. Positive bolts can hit up to 25 miles away from the parent thunderstorm. These "bolts from the blue" are especially dangerous because people may assume they're a safe distance away from the storm when they strike.<br />
The night couldn't have been more perfect for watching lightning.A full moon helped to light up the landscape and gave the thundercloud a silver lining. I stayed in the same spot for hours as multiple storms followed the same path.
    Under Jupiter
  • A supercell lurked in the darkness. Every few seconds a flash would illuminate the thundercloud and show a silhouette of the sharp spires of the Badlands. This was the 4th storm I watched this evening. Rumbles of thunder slowly grew louder as yet another storm approached from the west and threatened to block the view of this one. Badlands National Park is one of my favorite places to capture storms. Even when they’re 100 miles away, the views here are excellent. And distant storms are preferred when I’m camping. The Badlands are very exposed to the elements. There is no escaping the rain, wind, and mud. An earlier downpour soaked me to the skin but the wind that followed dried me in minutes. The mud is the type that cakes to the bottom of your shoes making every footstep heavier. But a few hours in the hot sun and the mud is baked dry. At the time of this picture tennis-ball sized hail was reported in the Pine Ridge Reservation to the south. The lights are from the metropolis of Interior, population 94. The lightning was mostly cloud-to-cloud; this was the only strike I captured out of 500 shots.
    Strike Beyond Interior
  • Perched on the side of a cliff at 10,000 feet, the storm rumbled toward me. Brilliant flashes of light interrupted the growing darkness. I wondered just how close the lightning would get before I sought shelter. This was my answer: 2/3 of a mile. Raindrops were frozen in mid-air and the ear splitting boom was almost instantaneous. Prayers were said during my mad dash to the car as 5 more bolts landed even closer.<br />
<br />
For years I've had a goal of capturing a lightning storm from the west slope of the Bighorns. But they are not all that frequent or predictable. Often storms will weaken as they approach or they will intensify without enough lead time for me to get there. With only a 20% chance of thunderstorms, I decided to take a chance and camp up here. But I never expected this to happen.
    Too Close For Comfort
  • I found myself camping in Eastern Montana after a day of chasing storms. As darkness fell, little green flickers of light started to emerge. At first I thought I was just seeing things. Normally fireflies are only found in the more wet and humid climates of the Midwest and Eastern US. I’ve previously photographed them in Illinois and Iowa. But the weather this year has been anything but normal on the Northern Plains. Excessive rainfall nearly every day over the last month has evidently caused fireflies (also called lightning bugs) to appear farther west than usual. As another round of thunderstorms approached they started to glow even more before wind shut them down for the night. The Tongue River near Miles City was running high and fast. In fact the water rose several inches while I was shooting this, lapping at my tripod. This is a composite image showing 30 minutes of firefly activity, combined with a single image of the lightning and stars.
    Montana Fireflies
  • Before the stars could fully appear they were blotted out. There is no night darker than a moonless, cloudy one in the mountains. Then somewhere beyond a ridge to the south, brief flashes of light began to multiply and intensify. Catching a lightning storm from this viewpoint on Red Grade Road has long been a goal. But driving up this dangerous road in a hurry at night during a storm seemed like a bad idea. So I arrived early, with enough time to have a campfire before the weather approached. Storms do not often take this path from the south, along the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains. But this was the perfect night, as bolt after bolt landed on the plains thousands of feet below. Close enough to clearly see, but far enough to be safe. The lights of Sheridan and Big Horn faded into the rain, which barely touched the mountains where I stood. This is a stack of images captured over about 20 minutes.
    Moncreiffe Ridge Lightning
  • One of my goals this summer was to capture a lightning storm from the Bighorn Mountains. But it’s not easy since by the time a storm pops up it may be too late to get to the right spot. And once I’m in the mountains, lack of cell data makes it hard to know what’s happening with the weather. But storms weren’t even expected on this night. I was camping near an overlook called Freeze Out Point. At 11PM I went up to the overlook one last time and was surprised to see flashes to the east. The cell was some 75 miles away in Montana, and at that distance lightning often appears red as it’s seen through the thicker lower atmosphere. Distant lightning strikes that are silent and without thunder are often called heat lightning. But heat lightning isn’t really a specific type, thunder simply can’t be heard from more than 10 miles away. There was just enough time to shoot a time lapse of this moonlit lightning storm before low clouds and fog came in and obscured the view.
    75 Mile Strike
  • On this evening I headed up into the hills to watch lightning. The first storm that made me head out the door wasn't any good for pictures, since most of the lightning was intra-cloud. But then I watched another cell pop up to my south. As this updraft exploded into the starry sky, it started producing positive lightning strikes. Positive lightning accounts for 5-10% of all lightning, and is up to 10X more powerful than negative strikes with a peak discharge of 1 billion volts. It originates from the top of a thundercloud and travels through miles of air before striking the ground. Positive bolts can hit up to 25 miles away from the parent thunderstorm. These "bolts from the blue" are especially dangerous because people may assume they're a safe distance away from the storm when they strike.<br />
The night couldn't have been more perfect for watching lightning.A full moon helped to light up the landscape and gave the thundercloud a silver lining. I stayed in the same spot for hours as multiple storms followed the same path.
    Lightning and Moonbeams
  • The mammatus looked impressive on the back of this storm after sunset.
    Blue Mammatus
  • This severe thunderstorm rolled across the grassland near Decker, Montana late at night. There were dozens of wildfires burning across Montana. Before this storm hit, the air was mostly clear. But the strong winds brought in thick smoke from the northwest. It smelled like there was a fire nearby, even though there were none in the immediate area. All the lightning had a reddish-orange tint to it.
    Orange Lightning
  • It was a very dark night at Devil's Tower, in between lightning bolts. The lightning was difficult to expose for, since it was infrequent, and usually very bright. This was one of the dimmer bolts. I was standing underneath the back door of my car to stay out of the rain when I took this.
    Power at the Tower
  • The storms of mid to late summer always have a different feel to them. Compared to June, moisture is harder to come by. Hot temperatures mean a greater dew point spread. This leads to higher cloud bases, which allows the sun to sneak in underneath, especially later in the evening. These monsoon-style storms can create truly stunning sunsets when the timing is right. There were 2 rounds of storms on this day. The first hit around 6pm, bringing a bit of lightning and a rainbow. But it was too early and too bright out to get the pictures I wanted, so I waited for the next round. After 8pm a line of thunderstorms descended out of the Bighorn Mountains. I went to a dead end road on a hilltop with a wide open view of the sky. The majority of lightning bolts struck to my north. But I pointed my camera west towards the golden light over the mountains, even though lightning was less frequent. After 360 some photos, I caught these 5 strikes which I stacked into 1 picture.
    Wyoming Monsoon Lightning
  • Before the stars could fully appear they were blotted out. There is no night darker than a moonless, cloudy one in the mountains. Then somewhere beyond a ridge to the south, brief flashes of light began to multiply and intensify. Catching a lightning storm from this viewpoint on Red Grade Road has long been a goal. But driving up this dangerous road in a hurry at night during a storm seemed like a bad idea. So I arrived early, with enough time to have a campfire before the weather approached. Storms do not often take this path from the south, along the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains. But this was the perfect night, as bolt after bolt landed on the plains thousands of feet below. Close enough to clearly see, but far enough to be safe.
    Mountain Lightning
  • Before the stars could fully appear they were blotted out. There is no night darker than a moonless, cloudy one in the mountains. Then somewhere beyond a ridge to the south, brief flashes of light began to multiply and intensify. Catching a lightning storm from this viewpoint on Red Grade Road has long been a goal. But driving up this dangerous road in a hurry at night during a storm seemed like a bad idea. So I arrived early, with enough time to have a campfire before the weather approached. Storms do not often take this path from the south, along the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains. But this was the perfect night, as bolt after bolt landed on the plains thousands of feet below. Close enough to clearly see, but far enough to be safe. The lights of Sheridan and Big Horn faded into the rain, which barely touched the mountains where I stood. This is a stack of images captured over about 18 minutes.
    Sheridan Lightning
  • The air felt heavy and still. As it rotated closer, this supercell seemed to grow wings. Within a couple of minutes Sundance Mountain was swallowed up by the precipation core. The 'calm before the storm' does not happen with every storm, but when it does it's very noticeable. Then a giant bolt of lightning struck out of frame, with a deafening thunder shattering the silence. An errant hailstone, big enough to leave a bruise, bounced off of the ground with a thud. It was time to move. This cell turned out to be an ice machine, piling up baseball-sized hail on the road, and making the temperature plummet which created hail fog. Chasing storms in and around the Black Hills has it's challenges. Winding roads through hilly terrain makes viewpoints limited and cell signal sporadic. But when everything comes together just right, the structure and color of the storms around here are incredible.
    Swallowing Mountains Whole
  • All night long lightning flashed to the north over Steamboat Point in the Bighorn Mountains. Then at 2:30AM Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE rose above the horizon. Finally as the first light of dawn came, noctilucent clouds appeared. It was the brightest display I've ever seen. Seeing all these things at the same time made it a night to remember.
    A Night to Remember
  • This severe thunderstorm rolled into northern Wyoming from Montana after 8PM. This north-facing railroad track was the perfect place to shoot a time lapse of it approaching. The NWS warned of winds up to 70 mph as the gust front passed over.
    Off The Rails
  • When this evening thunderstorm popped up, I knew I had to go to Chimney Rock to try to shoot the lightning behind it. After taking over 100 pictures, I eventually caught a couple bolts. A green light shines on the rock formation all night long.
    Lightning at Chimney Rock
  • This was the last line of thunderstorms on the other side of the cold front. The lightning was almost non-stop. I shot it next to the North Platte River not far from I-80. This is a stack of 10 shots.
    Strobe Lightning
  • This supercell dropped hail the size of baseballs and brought a good lightning show as it got closer.
    Cloud Piercer
  • Earlier in the spring I came across this overlook on a hilltop with a view of the mountains to the west. I knew it would be be the perfect spot to watch a storm roll out of the Bighorns, I just needed to wait for the right storm. My first attempt didn’t yield the pictures I wanted as the cell went too far south. But the second time’s a charm. This storm intensified after I got here and started spitting out dozens of close lightning bolts. It was dark enough that I could use a longer shutter speed, and capture about 40% of the strikes that occurred. But there were many more out of frame to the right. This is a composite image showing 5 of the best strikes. By the time I left there was a small stream running under my car as well as some minor street flooding in Sheridan.
    5 Strikes
  • This storm rolled in on the Montana border at 8PM and was producing a lot of lightning.
    Lightning Near Aberdeen
  • On this evening I headed up into the hills to watch lightning. The first storm that made me head out the door wasn't any good for pictures, since most of the lightning was intra-cloud. But then I watched another cell pop up to my south. As this updraft exploded into the starry sky, it started producing positive lightning strikes. Positive lightning accounts for 5-10% of all lightning, and is up to 10X more powerful than negative strikes with a peak discharge of 1 billion volts. It originates from the top of a thundercloud and travels through miles of air before striking the ground. Positive bolts can hit up to 25 miles away from the parent thunderstorm. These "bolts from the blue" are especially dangerous because people may assume they're a safe distance away from the storm when they strike.<br />
The night couldn't have been more perfect for watching lightning.A full moon helped to light up the landscape and gave the thundercloud a silver lining. I stayed in the same spot for hours as multiple storms followed the same path.
    The Hills Are Electric
  • On this evening I headed up into the hills to watch lightning. The first storm that made me head out the door wasn't any good for pictures, since most of the lightning was intra-cloud. But then I watched another cell pop up to my south. As this updraft exploded into the starry sky, it started producing positive lightning strikes. Positive lightning accounts for 5-10% of all lightning, and is up to 10X more powerful than negative strikes with a peak discharge of 1 billion volts. It originates from the top of a thundercloud and travels through miles of air before striking the ground. Positive bolts can hit up to 25 miles away from the parent thunderstorm. These "bolts from the blue" are especially dangerous because people may assume they're a safe distance away from the storm when they strike.<br />
The night couldn't have been more perfect for watching lightning.A full moon helped to light up the landscape and gave the thundercloud a silver lining. I stayed in the same spot for hours as multiple storms followed the same path.
    Moon Behind the Anvil
  • On this evening I went out for the sunset but stayed for the lightning. This is a spot close to home that I discovered last month. It's a great place to hike except for the abundance of ticks. We're at the time of year where spring progresses very quickly. Many trees seem to leaf-out almost overnight and wildflowers bloom out of nowhere. This hillside was covered in lupine, which is one of the most widespread wildflowers in North America. After the warmest day of the year, the air still felt very summer-like once the sun went down. I watched this thunderstorm go up to the east, and just waited for the first bolts of lightning to flash into the blue twilight sky. Even though it was almost 70 miles away, it was clearly visible.
    Lupine Lightning
  • I wasn't expecting to be back at Devil's Tower so soon but this was an opportunity I just couldn't pass up. I spent the evening chasing a supercell past the tower to the Montana border where it dropped hail larger than golf balls. Then I headed back to the tower just in case any new storms popped up. When I got there, lightning was beginning to flash from a new thunderstorm to the west, just like I had hoped. When rain began to fall I went and stood under the back door of my car to shoot pictures. The lightning wasn't all that frequent and it was challenging to get the exposure right. In between flashes, the light level would go from pitch black to practically burning my retina. When the rain let up a little, I went and stood in the middle of the dirt road. That's when this bolt filled the sky, perfectly placed above the tower. It's certainly the best foreground I've ever had for a lightning picture and I may have cheered after it happened.
    Awestruck
  • I had to stop for this view of the Twin Buttes with storm clouds and sunset colors behind them. The lightning was just a lucky catch with a 1/6 second exposure.
    Twin Buttes Lightning
  • There are some things that just don't happen every day. One of the brightest comets in decades is swinging past Earth this month. As I brainstormed to figure out where to capture it, Steamboat Point seemed like an obvious choice. Anyone who has driven Highway 14 would recognize this iconic peak of the Bighorn Mountains. It gets its name because of the massive rock face that sticks into the air like the prow of a steamboat. Even though storms were around in the evening, I was not expecting them to last. But lightning flashed to the north for the entire night. The red color is an effect caused by viewing from a long distance through the thicker atmosphere. At 2:30AM, the comet rose above the northeast horizon, tail-first. A comet's tail always points away from the Sun. The 67% moon off to the right lit up the mountain, while shadows added depth to the scene. Soon after this, noctilucent clouds joined the show, but that's for another post. By the time the sun rose my memory card had 1400 new images. It was a night very much worth losing sleep over.
    Worth Losing Sleep Over
  • When I reached this overlook in the Bighorn Mountains, one thunderstorm was moving off to the east, while another approached from the north. This is the eastern storm, dumping rain over the lights of Sheridan.
    Raining On Sheridan
  • In between two thunderstorms, the milky way made a brief appearance.
    Milky Way and a Flash
  • It was a beautiful night last night. A very active lightning storm receded into the distance underneath an otherwise clear and dark sky filled with stars. Mars was shining a brilliant red above the storm, and I was just barely able to fit the milky way in the frame.
    Flashing Galaxy
  • Last summer I spent some 4 hours watching this thunderstorm. From the time it formed before sunset until it receded into the starry night, it was producing a ton of lightning. Even though the storm wasn't severe it provided plenty of time lapse opportunities as I shot over 1,000 pictures. The best part is I never had to go more than 30 minutes from home. This picture is a blend of 2 images since the lightning bolt struck a few minutes after the best storm structure. The old barn/shed is one of the few structures remaining at the nearby ghost town of Monarch. In the early 1900's this area was home to thousands of people, exceeding the population of Sheridan. But after the numerous coal mines closed it was mostly abandoned.
    Monarch Storm
  • All summer long I had been waiting for a storm like this one. It seems like most of the thunderstorms this year would clear out in the evening, instead of persisting into the overnight hours. But it's a lot easier to capture lightning when it's dark. At night I can use a long exposure of 30 seconds, which increases the chances of capturing lightning. This wasn't a particularly strong storm cell, it produced no more than a couple dozen strikes. But that was enough. By positioning my tripod inside my car and shooting out the window, I was able to keep raindrops off my lens. This image is a stack of 5 separate pictures. The light trail curving around on the left is from a plane coming in for a landing at the Sheridan airport. The passengers would have had quite a view out the window.
    Last Night of July
  • I had been wanting to shoot a storm rolling out of the mountains from this overlook next to I-90. But this particular storm was dying just after sunset and produced hardly any lightning.
    Dying Storm at Twilight
  • As this supercell tried to wrap up, it produced a lot of lightning in the same spot. Normally lightning is hard to capture during the day but it was easy this time. This is a composite of 4 images.
    The Strike Zone
  • After riding out this severe thunderstorm outside of Faith, South Dakota, the conditions came together for a spectacular sunset. I stopped on this two-track road in the middle of a prairie, trying not to get stuck in the mud. Gorgeous colors filled the sky in every direction, with occasional flashes of lightning.
    Tumultuous Sky
  • A bolt of lightning jumps out of the gust front of a severe thunderstorm in South Dakota. This was one of my final shots before taking shelter in my car to escape the close lightning and 1.5" hail.
    Out of the Gust Front
  • This severe thunderstorm rolled across the grassland near Decker, Montana late at night. There were dozens of wildfires burning across Montana. Before this storm hit, the air was mostly clear. But the strong winds brought in thick smoke from the northwest. It smelled like there was a fire nearby, even though there were none in the immediate area. All the lightning had a reddish-orange tint to it.
    Smoky Strikes
  • On the last day of June, 2 severe storms known as derechoes formed and moved across Illinois. After the 2nd storm passed through, it provided an amazing show of lightning. As the rain and wind ended, bolts of lightning slowly crawled across the sky, lasting up to 5 seconds. Even though it was 11pm, the field of soybeans was lit up like day.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: June 30, 2014
    Static Charge
  • A powerful bolt of lightning appears to hover over a row of houses. This midsummer thunderstorm lasted 6+ hours and produced lots of similar lightning bolts.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: June 8, 2011
    Lightning Hovering
  • I could hear it before I saw it. A low rumble echoed across the verdant hills to the south while the sunset light faded behind me. Then the first flash of light cut through the hazy air. Somewhere beyond the railroad tracks a storm unleashed torrents of rain while my location remained dry. I've lost count of how many storms I've watched from this overlook east of Sheridan. Of the dozen or so good lightning bolts from this cell, my camera caught 3 of them. Somehow the best lightning always seems to happen out of frame or in the 1 second gap between pictures. Dusk is my favorite time to capture lightning. It's dark enough to use a long exposure, but light enough to still show details in the landscape.
    Beyond the Railroad
  • I'm still in shock that my camera captured this. Most of the small storm had moved off to the east behind me and I thought the show was over. This was literally going to be my last shot before packing it up, and if it happened 2 seconds later, I would have missed it. The bright light behind the cloud is the first quarter moon. All the other white specks are raindrops, frozen in mid-air by the brilliant flash. The raw power dwarfed everything around and it took awhile for my eyes (and ears) to recover. I'm still not sure what was struck, but one of the forks looks like it connects with the short tower on the hill. I've tried before and failed to capture lightning from this vantage point overlooking Sheridan. But when I heard a thunderstorm rolling out of the mountains shortly before midnight, this is where I went. The covered deck at the rest area offered a little protection and helped keep the rain off of my lens.
    A Flash of Brilliance
  • Before the stars could fully appear they were blotted out. There is no night darker than a moonless, cloudy one in the mountains. Then somewhere beyond a ridge to the south, brief flashes of light began to multiply and intensify. Catching a lightning storm from this viewpoint on Red Grade Road has long been a goal. But driving up this dangerous road in a hurry at night during a storm seemed like a bad idea. So I arrived early, with enough time to have a campfire before the weather approached. Storms do not often take this path from the south, along the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains. But this was the perfect night, as bolt after bolt landed on the plains thousands of feet below. Close enough to clearly see, but far enough to be safe. The lights of Sheridan and Big Horn faded into the rain, which barely touched the mountains where I stood.
    Sheridan Lightning
  • With a cold rain turning into accumulating hail, and lightning striking nearby it wasn't exactly the best weather for fishing. Park Reservoir, located at 8200' in the Bighorn Mountains was just barely reachable, with snow melting off of the rough road days earlier. But soon after arriving here, this storm started brewing before noon. I took shelter in my car to avoid the nearby bolts, but left my camera outside to shoot a time lapse. Lightning is not that difficult to capture at night, but during the day it's a lot harder. With the average bolt lasting for 30 microseconds, and using a shutter speed of 1/320 of a second, the chances of capturing lightning on camera were astronomically small. But after looking at the images later, I found that my camera had somehow captured a strike on the far left. The tree that was struck can even be seen going up in flames, but the rain put it out immediately.
    Striking A Tree
  • I chased this cyclic supercell from eastern Montana into South Dakota. In total, it produced 8 tornadoes. This was taken just before it dropped the last tornado of the day after sunset.
    Cyclic Supercell
  • A warm and humid wind gusted across the prairie causing the grasses and goldenrods to sway back and forth. In the distance a supercell thunderstorm spun away furiously. I knew a tornado was on the ground in Montana, but I couldn't see it until it crossed into South Dakota and emerged from behind a distant hill. The first tornado roped out after a couple minutes, but then this funnel quickly formed. It danced around, touching the ground briefly but not doing much. This was a cyclic supercell, which means it produced multiple tornadoes. As one ropes out, the wall cloud regenerates and another forms. Tornado #3 would be a much more substantial wedge that stayed on the ground for about 20 minutes. After I saw the storm's movement, I knew I could move a bit closer to get a clearer view. Sunset was minutes away and there was not much time left before it got too dark to see.
    Tornadic Buffalo Supercell
  • While my main camera took a time lapse, I used my backup camera to take a few additional shots of the lightning to the west. The lightning was very frequent and I stayed out as long as I could until taking shelter in my car. This storm brought 1.5" hail which left some dents on my car.
    The Other Side of Sunset
  • At the end of May I had the chance to get a picture I've always dreamed of taking: a rainbow and lightning simultaneously. It was a juxtaposition of calm and chaos; serenity and fury. I've seen it happen a couple times before, but had never successfully captured it. The conditions and the timing had to be just right. After chasing storms for several hours, I was almost ready to go home when the heavy rain started. But I couldn't ignore the warm glow emerging in the west, despite the incessant rain. I knew a large rainbow was likely, I just had to find a way to capture it out of the rain. So I attached my camera to the car window, and pointed east. I still had to wipe raindrops off my lens frequently, but this made it possible to shoot a few dozen frames. The two bolts of lightning occurred about 60 seconds apart, and I merged the pictures together.
    Struck By a Rainbow
  • On a frigid winter night I rented the Muddy Guard Cabin from the USFS. The log cabin was very rustic with no running water and a wood-burning stove, but it did have electricity.  My goal was to capture the Quadrantid meteor shower, but it wasn't the best night for it. The clouds cleared somewhat in the evening, but came back later on as snow showers moved in.
    Thousands Above, Fifteen Below
  • After trekking for 10 miles into the wilderness of Abisko National Park in Swedish Lapland, I was relieved to reach my destination. The last couple miles were the toughest, crossing a frozen lake fully exposed to the wind. My face was getting numb and the last of my water was now a block of ice. After warming up a bit I went back out to capture the mountain Kieron glowing in the evening sunlight. High peaks surround this scenic valley in the Scandinavian Mountains. The vegetation at the edge of tree line mostly consists of short birches, with everything else buried under a meter of snow. This was the first segment of the Kungsleden, a popular 270 mile long hiking and skiing trail. Ski season doesn’t start until the 2nd half of winter, the first half is much too dark. Mountain cabins are spaced about a day’s journey apart. They lack electricity or running water. But chopping firewood and collecting water from a hole cut in the ice keeps guests busy. The facilities included a small store, caretaker’s cabin, bunkhouse, and of course a sauna.
    Birches and Kieron
  • In early January I stayed at this USFS cabin high in the Bighorn Mountains on a frigid night. The cabin was very rustic with no running water and only a wood-burning stove for heat. The walls creaked as they heated up and I quickly learned that it's a lot of work trying to keep a cabin like this warm in subzero temperatures. But it did have electricity, and I left the lights on to cast shadows across the snowdrifts. My goal was to capture the elusive Quadrantid meteor shower. It's rarely observed simply because the weather is rarely ideal in early January. The sky was mostly clear at 10pm, but then snow showers moved in and obscured the stars just before the meteors were expected to pick up. But it was still a cool experience staying in this old log cabin.
    Cabin Fever
  • After taking the wrong trail I accidentally came across this old cabin in the Buffalo River Valley. "Granny Henderson" lived here until 1979 when this became a national park. There was no electricity or running water.
    Granny Henderson's Cabin
  • This was my second time staying the night at the Diamond Butte fire lookout tower. Last month I was locked out and had to sleep on the deck, but I was glad to be able to sleep inside this time since a storm was moving in. There was no running water or electricity, but it had a propane heater, stove, and lights.
    Light in the Dark
  • Just before the drenching rain started, I took one last shot and captured this bolt of lightning, reflected in Big Goose Creek.
    Electric Green
  • Electric Anvil
  • An updraft is a rising current of air that often leads to thunderstorms. The updraft of a developed storm is also the most active part with large raindrops and hailstones constantly rising and falling. As the rain and hail collide, this creates an electric field and eventually lightning. As the sun set, it gave this storm a beautiful orange color and highlighted the details and the structure.<br />
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Date Taken: May 3, 2012
    Heart of an Updraft