Dan Robinson
EF5
This day seemed to overperform everywhere, so I figured it deserved a REPORTS thread. I was not anticipating a good event this day. Moisture was expected to mix out along the Mississippi River during the afternoon with no upper support to give storms a boost in the St. Louis metro area. An outflow boundary from earlier storms pushed through the metro by late afternoon, with pulse-type storms going up just behind it. At 5PM, these were in progress across the metro area, so I drove over to Collinsville and Cahokia to take a look at a few of them. None of the storms were producing much lightning and seemed to be congealing mostly south of the city, so I went back home
30 minutes later, I went south for a new area of cells that were going up near Venedy, Illinois. A much more lightning-active cluster was crossing the river near Festus, and since the area south of I-64 had not seen much activity, I figured storms might have enough instability to sustain. I headed down to Tilden where the active storms were approaching. New cells were beginning to fire out ahead of it. Some of these leading cells starting producing visible bolts, so I set up both the DSLR and the high speed camera. None of the bolts were showing very well on either camera.
Soon, another new cell went up nearly overhead with a few close bolts out of the rain. I didn't have time to get the DSLR on these, but caught a couple on the high speed camera at 6,000fps.
As the gust front from the original storm cluster arrived, I moved east to stay ahead. One cell north of Coulterville started producing a flurry of bolts, so I stopped and set up. It only produced one more after I got the camera tripoded and the shutter open.
The rain caught up to me, so I was forced to move southeast. Additional new storms began firing along the advancing gust front. These started producing a near-nonstop barrage of vivid cloud-to-ground bolts out of the rain. I made it ahead of the rain again northwest of Pinckneyville, but only had time to get the DSLR set up for a few frames before the rain hit again. Close bolts were crashing down all around me, but none would hit where I had the camera pointed, even with the 10-22mm lens set wide at 10mm. I was stopped down to F13 due to the closeness/intensity of the bolts. Two bolts finally landed in frame, but they were right at the edge - a theme that would continue the rest of the night.
The storms had up to this point been moving at a crawl, but now they were pushing east quite rapidly with the surging outflow. I was not able to get out of the rain again before I ran out of east roads at Highway 127. I made another stop shooting handheld out of the window with the driver's side angled away from the wind, but the continued barrage of bolts still would not put one in frame of my cameras. As the storm's core of heavy rain arrived, I gave up and headed north toward I-64. Near Rice, another barrage of bolts began on the western end of the cores, so I stopped again and shot out of the driver's side window handheld as before. I finally got one bolt to land in the center of the frame, but still the others - including the closest bolt - stayed either out of frame or right on the edge.
That last one - the lone center-of-frame bolt - I also captured at 6,000fps, the only one I managed to get on both cameras this night.
This was an incredible storm, ranking up there with one of the best I've seen in terms of the number and frequency of close bolts. The barrages lasted over 45 minutes. Unfortunately, it was all frustratingly uncooperative for my cameras, leaving me with no "prize" shot to take home this night.
30 minutes later, I went south for a new area of cells that were going up near Venedy, Illinois. A much more lightning-active cluster was crossing the river near Festus, and since the area south of I-64 had not seen much activity, I figured storms might have enough instability to sustain. I headed down to Tilden where the active storms were approaching. New cells were beginning to fire out ahead of it. Some of these leading cells starting producing visible bolts, so I set up both the DSLR and the high speed camera. None of the bolts were showing very well on either camera.
Soon, another new cell went up nearly overhead with a few close bolts out of the rain. I didn't have time to get the DSLR on these, but caught a couple on the high speed camera at 6,000fps.
As the gust front from the original storm cluster arrived, I moved east to stay ahead. One cell north of Coulterville started producing a flurry of bolts, so I stopped and set up. It only produced one more after I got the camera tripoded and the shutter open.
The rain caught up to me, so I was forced to move southeast. Additional new storms began firing along the advancing gust front. These started producing a near-nonstop barrage of vivid cloud-to-ground bolts out of the rain. I made it ahead of the rain again northwest of Pinckneyville, but only had time to get the DSLR set up for a few frames before the rain hit again. Close bolts were crashing down all around me, but none would hit where I had the camera pointed, even with the 10-22mm lens set wide at 10mm. I was stopped down to F13 due to the closeness/intensity of the bolts. Two bolts finally landed in frame, but they were right at the edge - a theme that would continue the rest of the night.
The storms had up to this point been moving at a crawl, but now they were pushing east quite rapidly with the surging outflow. I was not able to get out of the rain again before I ran out of east roads at Highway 127. I made another stop shooting handheld out of the window with the driver's side angled away from the wind, but the continued barrage of bolts still would not put one in frame of my cameras. As the storm's core of heavy rain arrived, I gave up and headed north toward I-64. Near Rice, another barrage of bolts began on the western end of the cores, so I stopped again and shot out of the driver's side window handheld as before. I finally got one bolt to land in the center of the frame, but still the others - including the closest bolt - stayed either out of frame or right on the edge.
That last one - the lone center-of-frame bolt - I also captured at 6,000fps, the only one I managed to get on both cameras this night.
This was an incredible storm, ranking up there with one of the best I've seen in terms of the number and frequency of close bolts. The barrages lasted over 45 minutes. Unfortunately, it was all frustratingly uncooperative for my cameras, leaving me with no "prize" shot to take home this night.
