May 06 2009 - Eastern KS Cell

I started out about 7:30 PM with just the intention of getting some lightning shots out of a cell and ended up with some nice structure shots without ever seeing a flash of lightning. I originally figured I would be able to close half the distance to the cell by dark and start shooting some good pictures. More shots available on my Flickr

This was at a distance of 35 ish miles as I was trying to close on the cell. Shot from the driver side window shot rolling at 8:01 PM at (34mm), You can see the rotation in the main cell and the trailing cell:



At 8:08 a quick passenger side window shot as it was still building (40mm):



I stopped and grabbed a quick shot with the remaining sunset light on it and continued East after it 8:16 PM (50mm):



I finally stopped just West of Pleasanton after dark to shoot the cell still hoping for some lightning. The nearly full moon added great light to the cell. 8:52 PM (18mm Wide angle):



8:58 PM the rotational banding started up in a hurry (35mm):



9:01 PM just three minutes later (38mm):

April 09, 2009 SE Kansas Chase Log

I didn't get to head out until about 3:30 so I flew the back roads West until I hit 99 and headed South. I passed numerous controlled burns on the way down South which added an eerie look to the sky.



The best looking possibilities for something that wasn't lining out appeared to be in Elk County so I headed down past Howard on 99 to where I could get on the SSE corner of the last cell and after getting through most of the hail I stopped for a few structure shots. These are facing back North towards Howard.





As this moved on the cells kept refiring in about the same area and the hail would pretty much start up again right away. The first shot is the hail coming at us, the second is the structure:





After that got past it looked like it wasn't going to get going again so I shot this shot of it looking East and headed back North to Severy and noticed it was refiring behind me again after all so I headed towards Fall River to wait on it :



I stopped on a hill just West of Fall River to watch it coming my way and shoot some structure shots under the hail again. The hail here managed nickle sized at most but wasn't falling real heavy.





After this passed I headed back West hoping for some rainbow shots since the sun was getting close to coming under the tops and noticed this area of mammatus start bulging down rather rapidly so I stopped to shoot that and it started hailing yet again. You can see the hail falling in the foreground.



About that time my brother called and told me it was hailing heavily at home and that the ground was white, I had my doubts so he sent me this:



The rainbows never happened as the rain started dissipating so I headed back home day over.