Apr 222010
Night before last, a storm blew by with a fair deal of lightning. None of it was particularly close, however. Got a few “meh” photos. Weather around hear runs through May and into June or so, at which it devolves into fairly consistent “hot and dry.” So hopefully there’ll be a few good opportunities to improve upon these results.
6 Responses to “Lightning”
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Those are damn impressive photos!
Especially that third one.
BTW, what’s the height above sea level where you live?
I’m keen to check out a theory I developed after checking out cloud base heights during thunderstorms up here in North Dakota when I was working at the local airport as a weather reporter.
They seem kinda “meh” to me.
About 4400 feet.
Scott:
It’s cause you don’t hang out in the right location for good up close lighting! My experiance is that having large amounts of high-explosives in the area seems to attract lightning REAL well! As does massive amounts of expensive and sensative electronics with not enough surge protectors…
Just some thoughts ;o)
(The photo’s look good to me too btw, I used to try and stay outside to watch lightning storms as a kid. My mother was much less appricative of the display and curbed that habit real quick :o)
Randy
You might note that the photos are not all taken from the same spot. Some were in the back yard; others were in the field across the road. While the lightning was not especially close (from the point of view of photography, at any rate), it nevertheless “surrounded” me. Walking back through the filed as the first spits of rain started, with a six-foot aluminum tripod over my shoulder, it kinda dawned on me that I was not doign the smartest thing in the universe.
That’s about what I thought for your elevation.
I noticed over the years that the height of the cloud base during thunderstorms was at around 7,000-8,000 feet above ground level here at Jamestown, and the clouds in your photos looked a lot lower than that.
Jamestown is at a elevation of 1,500 feet above sea level, so you are about 3,000 feet higher than we are, and the clouds in your two top photos do look like they are around 3,000-4,000 feet above you.