Category Archives: Storm Chasing

Overall our storm chase trip from May 18-25 was a blast. Photography opportunities did not arise as often as I would have liked, but it was still a very memorable outing with 3 tornadoes observed. Two tornadoes were very puny, and were not photogenic at all with poor contrast due to such low cloud bases and high dewpoints/haze. We did observe the Reading, KS tornado, however it occurred after dusk and obviously there was too little light for any photo ops. Margie and Jennifer did catch some brief video of it as it was moving just north of Emporia, and we were able to pull a few digital stills off of the video. Lightning illuminated the tornado briefly enough to see it was a robust and powerful one.

Below are some of the other images I captured on the trip.

Crepuscular rays beaming from fragments of cumulus and stratocumulus on the plains of central Kansas. Image taken on May 21, 2011.

Updraft base of a left splitting supercell in central Kansas, just southwest of Emporia. Image taken on May 21, 2011.

A North Texas supercell on May 22, 2011. Feeder bands and a "Beaver's Tail" were present among this storm. Rotation was not overly apparent under the updraft base.

Very weak and brief tornado observed near Okeefe, OK on May 23, 2011. This may have actually been a landspout, as rotation was not visible among the updraft.

Another weak and brief tornado that was observed near Fairview, OK on May 24, 2011.

We tracked a splitting supercell Saturday from just northeast of Wichita toward Reading, Kansas. The left split of the storm offered more visible features, and continued to draw our attention to it throughout its lifecycle. Both cells propagated near each other along virtually parallel paths and had little separation between each other. Often times the right cell looked anemic compared to the left counterpart, including a quick span right before dusk. Finally, as the right cell continued to collapse, a new cell developed southwest of it and underwent rapid growth. This occurred just before sunset, and made for some great light hitting the towering storm. I set up my tripod and fired off 3 quick shots in hopes of doing an HDR image. Here is what I came up with.

A thunderstorm undergoes rapid growth on the plains of eastern Kansas on May 21, 2011.

By the way, this was the same storm that eventually dropped a tornado just north of
Emporia and then caused a lot of damage in Reading as it moved east. By this time it was almost completely dark. Margie was able to capture some video, so I may post some digital stills at some point.