This summer was the first summer that I had an interest in chasing storms. My education in engineering made me understand more of the science behind storms, primarily how they form and the physics behind it all, which made me appreciate them more. Also, my passion for photography drove me to Eastern Colorado in pursuit for storms and to photograph the beauty in them.
I noticed a few days before 8/16 that SPC was calling for a slight risk of storms over eastern Colorado. The week before school starts back up, and a week off of work, I realized that this day might be my last chance to chase any relevant storms in Colorado for the year. Monday morning I checked the models that I understand and decided to target northern Colorado/Southeastern Wyoming. Slowly though I began to second guess that decision and headed east on I-70 towards Limon around 1245. This ended up being a little late..
As I approached Deer Trail on I-70 a storm to my south suddenly became tornado warned. Excited to be in pursuit of my first visual of a tornado, I began scanning the sky to my south to see any evidence of a tornado. Immediately I saw a nice funnel a few miles south that quickly roped out and dissipated. Luckily I was able to get a quick picture out my car window while continuing to drive towards the storm to hopefully get closer to the action.
I approached the storm and got some video of the developing storm, but sadly did not see any other funnels or tornadoes. After observing the storm for about 45 minutes, I decided it wasn't worth sticking around for because some good looking storms had began to pop up to the north.
I drove north towards Brush through Last Chance and could see the storm to the north.
I headed towards Akron to intercept the storm, but by the time I got there it had dissipated.. Not much to see in terms of severe weather, but the dying cell at least provided me with some great photography opportunities.
Coming up on the storm I got to see a really cool inflow feature with a wall cloud (cool to me at least, I haven't been around too many big storms, so to see something and connect the dots at to what I am seeing is pretty neat). I bumped up the contrast on this photo to make the inflow features become more pronounced.
Not wanting to drive much further east I decided to call it quits for the night and head home on I-76. The approaching storm from the northwest began to produce a beautiful shelf cloud (I think) so I stopped to get some panoramic pictures as it approached.
I hit some rain showers on the way home, but could still see the mountains on the horizon. As the sun set through the rain, everything glowed orange and red. I stopped to snap a quick picture:
While I missed out on several photographic tornadoes on this day, I still had a blast. My third storm chase ever I consider a great success. The images to show what I saw can remind me of how great nature is!
Can't wait for next year!
Jason
