chrisbray
EF4
Every year while on vacation near South Haven, Michigan, I hope for the chance to document some storms rolling in over Lake Michigan at night. This year I was most fortunate with a cold front approaching from Wisconsin and a nearly horizontal line of storms dropping from North to South. My location was inside a slight risk area but I only observed sub-severe level winds with these storms.
[/url]P7224301 by inflow55, on Flickr[/IMG]
Here is a zoomed in area where the lightning was discharging frequently in the tops of the storm clouds
[/url]P7224303 edit by inflow55, on Flickr[/IMG]
As the line approached my spot on the beach, my weak cell phone signal allowed only sparse data updates. I could see, however, that I was unfortunate enough to be at the one spot along the entire line that had a cell pop up ahead of it. I took shelter in our cottage until the rain stopped, hoping to make it back out before the line itself hit. While doing so, the wind shifted abruptly. When the rain subsided I ran back to the beach and could see the gust front had made it well ahead of the actual convective line, allowing me to see the underside of the whale's mouth over the lake along with some lake surface lightning strikes. It was a magnificent sight.
[/url]P7224316 by inflow55, on Flickr[/IMG]
Here is a cloud to ground strike over the lake (some slight color temperature editing as I had it on a bad white balance setting for this shot)
[/url]P7224314 edit by inflow55, on Flickr[/IMG]
I did not have more than 10 minutes before the rain came again so I headed in and waited for the line to pass, about 35 minutes or so. Then, it was back to the beach for another hour of lightning photos over the lake. The lightning was just incredible and it illuminated the entire lake to the point that some of these pictures look like they could have been taken during the day. The thunder echoed with great intensity off the lake.
[/url]P7234328 by inflow55, on Flickr[/IMG]
I wish I had an ultra wide angle lens for these shots. The anvil crawlers spread out so far I could only get portions of it, even with my wide angle lens set at 14mm.
[/url]P7234330 by inflow55, on Flickr[/IMG]
Sometimes the lightning was so bright as to be overexposed by my camera as I was using f6 to f8 usually.
[/url]P7234332 by inflow55, on Flickr[/IMG]
After a while, a secondary gust front seemed to move north from the line that had passed to the south. As this cloud cover moved overhead it became increasingly hard to catch any of the lightning bolts, so I reluctantly called it a night. But it was by far one of my favorite lightning picture events!
Here is a zoomed in area where the lightning was discharging frequently in the tops of the storm clouds
As the line approached my spot on the beach, my weak cell phone signal allowed only sparse data updates. I could see, however, that I was unfortunate enough to be at the one spot along the entire line that had a cell pop up ahead of it. I took shelter in our cottage until the rain stopped, hoping to make it back out before the line itself hit. While doing so, the wind shifted abruptly. When the rain subsided I ran back to the beach and could see the gust front had made it well ahead of the actual convective line, allowing me to see the underside of the whale's mouth over the lake along with some lake surface lightning strikes. It was a magnificent sight.
Here is a cloud to ground strike over the lake (some slight color temperature editing as I had it on a bad white balance setting for this shot)
I did not have more than 10 minutes before the rain came again so I headed in and waited for the line to pass, about 35 minutes or so. Then, it was back to the beach for another hour of lightning photos over the lake. The lightning was just incredible and it illuminated the entire lake to the point that some of these pictures look like they could have been taken during the day. The thunder echoed with great intensity off the lake.
I wish I had an ultra wide angle lens for these shots. The anvil crawlers spread out so far I could only get portions of it, even with my wide angle lens set at 14mm.
Sometimes the lightning was so bright as to be overexposed by my camera as I was using f6 to f8 usually.
After a while, a secondary gust front seemed to move north from the line that had passed to the south. As this cloud cover moved overhead it became increasingly hard to catch any of the lightning bolts, so I reluctantly called it a night. But it was by far one of my favorite lightning picture events!
