5/31/09 REPORTS: TX/SD

[Graham Butler]

After the last few chances for lighting, which were all severe let downs, I had a pretty negative outlook on yesterdays chances for lightning photography. It seems like everytime this year, as soon as I would get my tripod out, the lightning would either stop or become unable to photograph. Although there were some absolutely unbelievable lightning strikes, with my luck, hit just outside of frame. I still managed to get some good shots and I am even more excited about todays chances for lightning photography.....hopefully with some daytime lightning so as to give the lightning trigger a run!!

Graham

 

[Richard Dickson]

Graham,

Very nice work! I particularly like the fourth photo where the lightning is dancing around the switching yard. I don't know if you have a friend at the electric company or not, but I'll bet they would be interested in seeing your work.

These shots get me excited for the monsoon to start here in Arizona in a few weeks which normally provide excellent lightning for those willing to get out.

 

[John Wetter]

Here are a few shots from the South Dakota part of this event:

The full gallery with more photos can be found over at www.wxchaser.com

 

[jshields]

i went south along I-29 and intercepted the storm that was warned right along IA/NE border. it was pretty impressive looking as i approached, but i only experienced brief heavy rain. i believe the reports of hail came just west of I-29. the storm was very high based but still tried to show a little bit of rotation for a time before weakening as it moved east into Iowa. the best part of yesterday was after i got home last night. a line of non severe tstorms formed around 10pm just south of omaha and were nearly stationary. these lasted for a couple of hours before weakening, only to have another "line" of cells develop about 10-15 miles further north and again sit nearly stationary. i had an amazing lightning show for nearly 4 hours! the best was with the last development just south of town. i took a ton of lightning pics and will be posting several of them on my blog shortly!

 

[Karla Dorman]

GORGEOUS images - here is one from a dying thunderstorm at sunset in Burleson, TX - nothing special, but made for some beautiful mammatus -

 

[Tyler Burg]

Just a couple from the Nebraska storms that moved into IA...

Near Louisville...

a few miles west of red oak

Over I-80 west of Omaha

Nice lightning producing night as jshields mentioned. Unfortunately this was the best chase of the month for me. Full report up here...

http://tonightssky.org/accounts/053109.html

 

[jshields]

added an update to my blog with a bunch of lightning pics and others

 

[Brian Stertz]

SE Nebraska supercell

Adding a nice pair of supercell shots from Sunday's chase in NE...meaning that myself and the Thies chase crew were out of position...but a pretty shot nonetheless. This was looking southeast from northwest of Lincoln. This bottom photo may match up time-wise with Tyler's pic above possibly.

 

[Kevin Myatt]

wall cloud near Mitchell, S.D.

We caught a couple of supercells west of Mitchell, South Dakota, on Sunday, May 31. The second ... actually the "tail-end Charlie" in a line segment ... produced this wall cloud northwest of Mitchell. A tornado warning was issued on the cell about 45 minutes before and radar was continuing to show some rotation, but the cloud bases were too high for any real chance at tornadoes.

The Virginia Tech storm chasers returned home after this, traveling from South Dakota to Virginia in 2 days. Very tired, very exhausting and often frustrating chase trip, but a couple of good catches.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

My report, from the storms after dark(day ones sucked the entire time) can be seen here: http://www.extremeinstability.com/09-5-31.htm