2024-10-24 REPORTS: KS/MO/IA/IL

[Dan Robinson]

For the first time I've seen in 15 years of living in the Midwest, we had clear skies overhead and a large MCS the right distance away to view sprites. I saw several of them with my eyes, capturing four on camera from Worden, Illinois north of St. Louis. The MCS was in northeastern Missouri. These were with the 50mm F1.8 wide open, 1.6 second exposures at 3200ISO.

More on my blog:

September-October 2024 Storm Chasing Recap

 

[JamesCaruso]

Wow Dan, that’s incredible. Reports threads are not supposed to have questions, but this almost deserves its own thread with sprites in the title because capturing them is so rare. Anyway, my question is what direction are you looking here? Are you ahead of, or behind, the MCS? If you can still edit your post to note that, or add a post below, I’ll come back and delete this…

 

[Dan Robinson]

Thanks James, sprites happen overtop of positive CGs in the trailing stratiform region of a squall line. You just need clear skies adjacent to an MCS with electrified stratiform 100-200 miles away to view them. They are surprisingly big and high up even at those distances, you don’t need a long lens. My 50mm lens was plenty.

Being west of dryline storms in the Plains (looking east) is the most surefire way to have the clear skies next to storms needed see them. Outside of that, I have found it nearly impossible to get clear skies near an MCS in the Midwest. We almost always get anvil blowoff cirrostratus leading, or stratus trailing.

Photography-wise, they are a lot like auroras and need to be shot with faster lenses and at a high ISO. They are better viewed in rural areas. Like aurora, you can see them faintly with your eyes, but they show up on camera much better. Unlike aurora, shorter exposure times are better so that you have a darker sky to increase their contrast.