I haven’t done much in the way of storm chasing this summer, at least not yet. I’ve caught shelf clouds moving through our neighborhood. One even approached as I caught the bat flight out of our neighborhood bat box, which has become two boxes. The new one is supposed to lure the bats out of the old one, which is falling apart. After less than two weeks, it sure had attracted a lot of bats, as you can see in the video.
I caught more cloud iridescence on July 4 as well. As the sun slipped behind the towering storms to our west, the wispy caps of those storms lit up like a prism, making what some people call “cloud rainbows.” Diffraction causes water droplets or ice crystals to scatter light and make these colors.
Cloud iridescence above central Florida storms on July 4.
While I’m often checking radar, and we’ve had a few gully-washers here on Florida’s Space Coast, unfortunately, there hasn’t been a lot of lightning at night. At least not within reasonable striking distance, so to speak.
The thing about Florida storms is they don’t last the way supercells in Tornado Alley do. They go up and down in about thirty minutes. So when I see nice lightning on my radar app and note it will take an hour to drive to a good vantage point for photography, I often give up before I ever set out. And of course, I don’t chase storms full-time. I’m busy working and don’t have the luxury of setting up for the daily sea breeze collision, alas.
Lightning over the St. Johns River west of Cocoa, Florida, on July 8, 2026. Click to see a larger version.
Still, after the lightning had been cooking for a while Wednesday night, I noticed the storms were persistent and thought I’d give it a shot. I stopped at a spot on the St. Johns River west of Cocoa, Florida, and got a few shots, including this one. The lightning seemed too far away, thought I love the moody wide shot with the stars overhead (some detail is lost at low resolution, but click on the photo to see a larger version).
I tried to get closer but realized most of the lightning was buried in rain. So I headed back east, stopping once more at the river to try to capture the looming outflow feature. It wasn’t quite as pretty as the earlier stuff, but I loved standing there in the quiet with the frogs chirping and the water occasionally sloshing. Alligators, maybe. The mosquitoes were less romantic, but it was still lovely to take a moment and enjoy the peace of nature.
Click on any of the following images to see a larger version and caption.
