June 10, 2010 Last Chance, Colorado supercell
Packed the car with people and departed at 9am targeting the McCook area in Southwest Nebraska. Went to Lake McConaughy for a bit, because we were a little early. Briefly entertained by some sparrows nesting in the dam water release thing, that controls the lakes water levels. 45 min later and we needed to be back on the road and get data back. Stopped in a Mike H's motel room and waited for another hour or two, it was fun to finally meet Scott Bennett who stopped by. With no cumulus in SW Nebraska it was time to move for stuff firing off the front range of the mountains. Raced on 76 towards Sterling where we exited and got west to a storm that was looking very good and radar and actually had a nice wall cloud from what was seen from the interstate. As soon as we find a spot to pull over and start taking pictures/video the storm completely dies. Later we figured out it hit the outflow of storms to the north and could no longer receive inflow. At this point we're pretty pissed, 7 hours from home and we haven't seen crap. Its either go home time or hope the storms to the south stay together long enough for us to get there. They did.
Sunset going on to the right, an impressive mesocyclone to the left, and lightning above. Can't really ask for much more. The shot above is NE of Last Chance, Colorado, four images combined all taken within a minute of each other. This way there are 4 different strikes of lightning in the image. I hate choosing white balance on storms at sunset, none of them work well. Thats why the images may look different, cause I couldn't choose the right white balance lol.
Structure a few minutes later. I like this white balance better, but since its looking more SW than the previous image, it was a bit different tone, since its looking farther from the sun. This is probably my favorite shot from the chase because the foreground is almost perfect. In fact I liked this shot so much, that I uploaded a high res version of it.
Lightning later on. Stopped for Dinner in Yuma, then off to hope in one of the most electric nights of my life. Didn't get home till 6am the next day.
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