I was unimpressed with Sunday's severe weather
threat as a
morning MCS across Iowa had pushed most of the severe possibility too far east for me to reach from Sioux City. Thus, I got a late start, leaving the hotel by about 10 am. Eventually a target in north-central Illinois reared its head, but I was too late to reach the conglomeration of
messy multicells and transient supercells south of I-80. By the time I got to the Quad Cities, I was happy to divert north around the convection and head home to see Sharon and Chase before dinner. At about 9 pm, I noticed a few small
showers develop quickly on the radar across the I-88 corridor, which suggested the potential for elevated thunderstorms. Indeed, in about 20-30 minutes, the radar lit up like a Christmas tree. I grabbed a limited amount of equipment and drove a few miles south of DeKalb to capture some lightning. Early on, it was quite impressive -- I was able to grab a few good shots of lightning near the DeKalb windfarm, but eventually the lightning became shrouded in precipitation. I then decided to bust south of the line to see if the lightning was visible from that perspective. As soon as I neared Waterman and cleared the rain, the sky opened up like one of those plasma balls you can get at Spencer's Gifts in the mall. I setup shop in a couple locations south of Waterman, only moving when the lightning felt like it was going to have me for dinner. I missed THE shot: lightning struck about a mile away, hitting a transformer that caused a long-lived purble-green blowout. It was
just to the right of my viewfinder. Argh. Anyway, quite a eventful evening that made up for the bust the day before. Sunday reconfirmed to me that the best lightning setups are elevated storms that lack a low-level stratus deck.
Stacks
Stack of ~10 frames shot ~5 miles south of Waterman, IL, looking northwest. An animated gif of this scene is available here.
Stack of ~4 frames shot ~5 miles south of Waterman, IL, looking northeast. An animated gif of this scene is available here.
Single Frames
Lightning strikes one of the turbine blades in the DeKalb windfarm.
Stack of ~4 frames shot ~5 miles south of Waterman, IL, looking northeast. An animated gif of this scene is available here.
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1 comment:
Great captures. I caught the strike that hit the transformer. I was in between Hinckley and Waterman about a mile south of Rt 30. Best display in quite some time I would say.
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