Skip Talbot
EF5
Seeing that it's been so quiet on the plains for supercells, I've taken to chasing another form of tornado with a season that is peaking right now: waterspouts on the Lake Michigan. Record lake temperatures due to the unusually hot summer have primed the lake for waterspout outbreaks. There have been several already this year and the season is only about half way over. I've made three runs to the lake this year from Springfield, and got pretty lucky on this last trip, capturing three waterspouts, one at pretty close range. We missed the best one in South Haven by only a few minutes though:
Watch video >
The circulation on that first one actually made landfall, the National Weather Service reporting that it crossed I96 south of South Haven. I'll see if I can get Jenn or Jon to post some of their pictures of the spouts as they are better than mine.
The lake provides plenty of other photographic opportunities when there aren't any spouts in progress. Here's a few shots and some time lapsed video from my last couple of trips.
Some time lapse experiments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzcXzZW457Y
Watch video >



The circulation on that first one actually made landfall, the National Weather Service reporting that it crossed I96 south of South Haven. I'll see if I can get Jenn or Jon to post some of their pictures of the spouts as they are better than mine.
The lake provides plenty of other photographic opportunities when there aren't any spouts in progress. Here's a few shots and some time lapsed video from my last couple of trips.






Some time lapse experiments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzcXzZW457Y