2015 Southwest Monsoon

[Jeremy Perez]

If anyone wants to post reports or photos from the 2015 monsoon season, please feel free.

It's been a pretty enjoyable storm season in the southwest this summer. A couple weeks ago, some really nice, unseasonal shear—along the bottom of the upper level high—even dealt us a few supercells for a couple days.

For tonight, 13 JULY 2015, a mass of pop-up storms crept eastward across central and northern Arizona. Flashes out the living room window got my attention and I headed a couple miles east of Flagstaff for a few shots. I managed to set up under the next batch of storms that brewed up. So I got the gift of heavy rain to keep me from even getting decent use of my window mount. Several really close strikes while I was waiting it out put me on edge. One of them apparently hit a ponderosa a couple hundred feet to my east and gave me something to photograph before the fire department cruised over to be sure it sputtered out on its own.

Lightning strike through spattered window
The fire is a couple minutes old at this point


A horribly overexposed strike
If only I had taken it down about 3 stops before this happened.


Anvil crawlers flicker as the tree burns


More fire, because—fire.

 

[Greg Campbell]

The season got of to a slightly early start, and I got a few decent pics toward the end of June.

 

[Kevin Rimcoski]

So i spent the last 20 minutes posting pictured and wla write up on my phone just for it not to work...go figure

Now running late for work so ill hqve to try again later

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[Marc R. O'Leary]

Monsoon just starting to kick off up here in CO...can't wait to get out on my nightly adventures of avoiding rain and catching some bolts. Hoping for a chance tonight and tomorrow to get started. Good luck to all this second season.

Thanks for starting this thread @Jeremy Perez

 

[Kevin Rimcoski]

This was taken this past sunday as this storm went severe near Green Valley


From a couple weeks ago from the desert museum. Birth of a dust storm


Also from the desert nuseum. This also went severe shortly after. Was lucky enough to watch it go up right on top of us




Some supercellular structure. Something you just don't see every day here. I love the second photo. My brother took this from the car. While my family was visiting from Connecticut, I just couldn't help but have to chase that day after looking at the sounding from that morning. Glad I chose that day to take my mom and brother chasing. We were treated to this as it rolled off of Mt. Lemmon. Sadly got trapped in traffic as we were traveling west to get ahead on rt 86 where it also produced a microburst, golf ball sized hail which a few also looked slightly smaller than tennis balls as they hit the ground, a rapidly rotating gustnado that caused a panic with traffic as it crossed 86, and 60+mph winds



Of course mandatory AZ sunsets with my new camera









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[Jeremy Perez]

@Greg Campbell - Excellent lightning shots, Greg! Those desert vistas are perfect.
@Marc R. O'Leary - I hope you get some good storms, Marc. I'm looking forward to seeing what you catch.
@Kevin Rimcoski - Great collection of shots, Kevin—it's one of my favorite sights when you get an isolated view of a cell building almost overhead. And the structure on that Mt. Lemmon storm is awesome. It was really interesting having flow out of the east on those storms and watching how they behaved, winding up couplets and gaining supercell characterestics.

 

[Kevin Rimcoski]

@Greg Campbell - Excellent lightning shots, Greg! Those desert vistas are perfect.
@Marc R. O'Leary - I hope you get some good storms, Marc. I'm looking forward to seeing what you catch.
@Kevin Rimcoski - Great collection of shots, Kevin—it's one of my favorite sights when you get an isolated view of a cell building almost overhead. And the structure on that Mt. Lemmon storm is awesome. It was really interesting having flow out of the east on those storms and watching how they behaved, winding up couplets and gaining supercell characterestics.

It was a bit weird watching the forward flank following the updraft. Both moving southwest. Especially after you're used to watching storms out in the plains. You get used to how those characteristics are and how theu behave, the structure and movement

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[John Farley]

Here are a few from the Pagosa Springs area in southwest Colorado:


Possible shear funnel on June 27


June 29 lightning


Nighttime lightning over the San Juans, June 30


Intense bolt across Village Lake, also June 30. Despite the fact that it is blown out, I kind of like this image because it captures the intensity of the bolt.


July 1 lightning over the San Juans, northwest of Pagosa Springs near the Archuleta/Hinsdale County line.

 

[Kevin Rimcoski]

Finally had an opportunity to get lightning on the 16th. Was trying for some daytime shots as there was a severe storm nearby....but dam are they hard. Chased until a little after 9 but ended up getting these (Posted in another thread as well):

 

[Kevin Rimcoski]

And the monsoon flow returns finally

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[Kevin Rimcoski]

The last few days have been pretty active. I covered about 1000 miles in just 4days. And everything was pretty local as well







This cell was located a few miles north of Sonoita, AZ. Had some great structure with it for a while, scuddy base, and the last picture shows some scud in the front of the mountain under the base which was rising and had weak rotation with it



Having to core punch to get ahead and catch a storm heading towards Benson





All of these photos above were taken on Wednesday (7-29-15)
The two photos above were the storm we caught after punching through. Again, had a slight lowering off the base, nice structure, and decent hail core. You can see lit up by the lightning.

 

[Kevin Rimcoski]

And these were taken near Green Valley the same day



Friday was also another great chase day. I was lucky enough to get off work early enough that day. Thursday, I missed everything. It all gusted out just as I got to any storms




Some dust blowing over I-10




Dust being kicked up in my position




One of my favorite daytime bolts I've caught so far. These were taken off Park Link RD by the Catalinas




Heading north, this I believe was just past Eloy. Lots of dust storms that day

 

[Kevin Rimcoski]

My favorite from Friday. Got my first haboob. Can't remember exactly were I qas, but this was somewhere right after getting on I8 and heading west






And the best from Saturday. Other than good contrast, a vibrant rainbow south from a storm south of Vail, this is probably one of my favorite shots so far. We were sitting directly under the base. This had a beautiful shelf, frequent CG, and another base way in the background which had a weak hook, and a decent couplet for a few scans. Just being too far away with no west option, this was all we could see











It was sitting near three points, but we were off to the east

 

[Kem Poyner]

I took these photos of a bazaar storm structure near Florence Arizona on Friday July 28th

 

[Jeremy Perez]

@Kem Poyner

Kem, those are great shots! That looks like a very successful monsoon chase. It almost looks like a gustnado on left side of the bottom pic.
My interpretation of the cloud feature—
It seems like it wants to be an isolated storm base, but transitioning to a condensed shelf. Possibly, the line of outflow is making a more rapid push right beneath that feature and lifting the moist surface layer more rapidly than other parts of the surrounding gust front.