Prairie Skies, Part 1

One of the best things about living in flyover country is that all that open space makes for plenty of open skies.  And here where warm moisture from the Gulf of Mexico collides with cold dry air from the Rockies, there are plenty of interesting events staged in those wall-to-wall skies.

From the front porch here, we've had an up-close-and-personal view of two tornados rolling through in the last few months (thankfully with no loss of life and only minimal property damage)... and countless thunderstorms that shake the foundation of the house long before you can hear them coming, and that light up the night sky even when they are over a hundred miles away.

Sometimes, all one has to do to capture images of these nighttime noisemakers is to (a) put the camera on a tripod, (b) set the gain low enough to permit an exposure of several seconds in duration, (c) find a good focus, and (d) start taking pictures.

Here's some images taken from the front porch of last week's storm.  Enjoy!

--Cieran

Comments

[Maureen Lang]

Thank you so much for posting, Cieran. These photos are breathtaking!

[Patrick Lang]

Cieran. That is some very cool stuff. pl

[Cieran]

Thanks!

I think you'll like Part 2 even more... so stay tuned!

[John Minnerath]

Difficult captures. Very excellent, I've never had much luck capturing lightening, we just don't get the intensity of such light shows here.

[rjj]

Severe weather geeks are probably familiar with these images.

Will post for those who are casual spectators.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthpicturegalleries/6187644/Storm-Chaser-a-photographers-journey-into-hurricanes-tornadoes-and-supercell-thunderstorms.html