I’ve been longing for nighttime lightning, as I always do during Florida’s summers. I want to photograph it, of course, but there’s just not as much of it as you might think. Often, storms fire early and shoot off outflow boundaries, sometimes in the form of sweeping shelf clouds like this one in Rockledge on Wednesday. I’m still hoping for more!

Meanwhile, the tropics are active. While hurricanes are fascinating, mostly, I think they’re more pain than pleasure. They present fewer photographic opportunities, unless you’re on the International Space Station, and they cause a lot of misery. However, if you’re into the violence of nature, as many storm chasers are, it’s hard to resist them. I’d rather chase tornadoes any day.

Florida has afforded a fair number of photo opportunities since I’ve been back from what I consider my real storm-chasing trip, the one to Tornado Alley.

I shouldn’t be a storm snob, but the Plains storms have such power and magnificence, it’s hard for Florida’s summer thunderstorms to compete. Still, Florida is king of the shelf clouds, and it’s tops nationally in lightning (though not always at night, when I prefer to shoot it).

 

Wednesday, June 13, I caught a very pretty shelf cloud in Brevard County, Florida, as it came over the Indian River Lagoon. One result was the panorama above; the other is the video, which includes time-lapsed footage.

Roll over a photo to see a caption, or click on any image to start a slide show.

 
It’s always difficult adjusting to the routine of regular life when I get off the road. Storm chasing embodies freedom for me – the ability to go wherever I wish, according to nature’s whims, to follow the weather. I am totally immersed in my passion.

I love being at home, too, but my attentions are fragmented. I have to work to earn a living, acknowledge bills and deal with the drudgery that comes from basic life maintenance. (Though laundry follows me even on the road.) At least Florida offers storms in the summer, although the photo opportunities are more scant than you might think, especially for lightning.

The night of June 10, I headed out about 9 p.m. EDT in hopes of catching some lightning in a severe storm that was approaching the east-central Florida coast. Most of the bolts seemed buried in rain, and I was preparing myself for disappointment.

I decided to give it a few more minutes in case it went into anvil-crawler mode, and I was pleasantly surprised by a handful of spectacular crawlers, shot from Rockledge, Florida.

Roll over a photo to see a caption, or click on any image to start a slide show.

I’m tired … it’s late … and I have to get my sleep schedule turned around before my epic drive to Tornado Alley in a couple of days. But I had to post images and video from Thursday’s chase of a beautiful severe storm in Brevard County, Florida.

 
I went after a severe storm that was heading southeast out of Titusville, Florida, the evening of May 17, 2012. It produced a beautiful shelf cloud and a lot of turbulent motion.

Roll over a photo to see a caption, or click on any image to start a slide show.

Storms popped up all over east-central Florida on May 7, 2012, spawning lightning and downpours, but few retained any structure or isolation for long.

Yet one storm in West Melbourne had a nice, rain-free base for a while, along with impressive lightning. The video shows its evolution.

Roll over a photo to see a caption, or click on any image to start a slide show.

May is a month away – and for me, that means my annual Tornado Alley trip is about that far away, too. I’ll likely head out with the first good system, but it will be after May 1, when I am speaking to the Camera Club of Brevard about photographing storms and storm chasing.

Saturday was a good warmup. That’s when Jim Leonard played host to a storm chaser gathering in Boynton Beach, Florida. There was good food, lots of good storm video, and lots of tale-telling, of course. Enhancing the experience were some pretty little storms that rolled through.

 

Severe and not-so-severe storms came in waves through Brevard County, Florida, today.

Today was good evidence that east-central Florida’s dry season is finally over, or at least taking a break. We had several rounds of severe and nonsevere storms in Brevard County, but chasing the lightning wasn’t easy. The storms this evening were moving south so fast, I could barely get ahead of them, thanks in part to way too many traffic lights. Makes me miss the prairie!

 

I have extensive archives from my early storm chasing years. I chronicled almost every day on the road, even bust days, at the old SkyDiary site, with lots of photos. In the interest of collecting everything in one place, I’m moving the highlights of the older chases – or quirky moments worth remembering – over to ChrisKridler.com. With that in mind, this post collects just a few of the accounts from 2009 and select photos to accompany them.

 

May 2, 2009: I began my trip to the Plains to chase storms, never dreaming I’d actually be chasing on Day One during my long drive from Florida. I saw a couple of tornado-warned storms in Mississippi, but no tornadoes. I drove over 900 miles on this day, and a ridiculous number of hours after leaving home at 5:30 a.m. EDT.

May 3, 2009: I woke up in Jackson, Mississippi, on May 3 to the first wave of squalls hammering the hotel. After a snooze, I got up about an hour later and saw a huge bow heading our way on the radar. I was out of the hotel by 9 a.m. and heading south on I-55. It looked like a cell was forming ahead of the line. I dropped south, then, trying to intercept the tornado-warned advance cell, made a problematic decision to take a tiny, windy road northwest into what was essentially a forest.

I started to make my way toward a main road and saw lots of branches and some trees down. This was in a rural area west of Hazelhurst. I was so close to the main road when … yep, a tree down, blocking my way. I thought that might happen. Here I am checking out the fallen tree. My superpowers failed to manifest, so I had to leave it, turn around and find another way out. I gave up the chase and headed west.

May 5, 2009: My initial target was somewhere between Abilene and Seymour, Texas, where the dryline push and warm front were likely to intersect and where upper-level winds would enhance storms. I would refine that forecast on the road. I left Amarillo in the mist and cold and, after a data stop in Childress, I dropped south.

I found the Cloud 9 Tours group in Aspermont, so I goofed around with them for a while as I kept an eye on the clearing satellite picture. I left the Cloud 9 folks because I wanted to get a little southeast, where the forecast suggested storms might fire, and near the field of cumulus clouds near the warm front. This is east of Anson. At first, they weren’t much to look at. Soon, the clouds starting percolating in the afternoon heat and began to form a nascent storm, here seen from a picnic area that overlooks Hubbard Creek Reservoir, west of Breckenridge. From Breckenridge, the tower looked solid. At this time, I began to see massive chaser caravans.

 

Though the storm became disorganized, the towers at its southwest end began building and dominating. This is just east of Breckenridge. I ran into the Cloud 9 group again. We were among dozens of chasers (at least) who were following the storm.

I repositioned and got a nice view of a wall cloud forming. It began rotating as small hail began falling around me. Driving through the hail was stressful, but I stayed ahead of the bigger stones, despite a lot of banging on the car. The reward: this beautiful rotating wall cloud crossing Interstate 20 at Route 16.

 

May 8, 2009: Most of today was frustrating. I began the day in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and decided the front and the monster convective potential suggested southeast Oklahoma might be the place to catch storms today, or somewhere along the Red River between Oklahoma and Texas. I made the long drive down to Durant, Oklahoma, on the border, had a late lunch and pondered my options. I decided I needed to get a little west, closer to the front, and also wanted to keep an eye on a line of cumulus clouds developing in clearer air in Texas. Those started to pop, and I made the decision to go south. A while later, I decided I didn’t want to bother with those south-moving hailers, especially because it might take a while to catch them – yet a tornado was reported from one of them in Early, later. Meanwhile, a line of storms was going up to my west, so I checked them out. The result was beautiful.

May 12, 2009: What a crazy drive today. I started in Woodward, Oklahoma, and at first thought about an Oklahoma panhandle target. But as the day wore on, the models’ meager forecast of precipitation there evaporated, and it seemed like the southwest Texas panhandle would be more likely. Thanks to Steve Sponsler for data updates.

 

May 13, 2009: I started the day in Chickasha, Oklahoma, and at first targeted northern Oklahoma. I talked the day over with Jim Leonard (thanks, Jim!), who suggested Kansas had better potential for tornadoes – though the veered surface winds made the profile less than ideal, as did the likely formation of a line of storms on the cold front. I thought Kansas would fire earlier, too, and the RUC model moved the convective potential bullseye into southeast Kansas, so I headed toward Independence, Kansas. Then the first “bomb” went off on the front northwest of me, so I tried to get in position as the whole line lit up.

May 15, 2009: It seemed clear that there would be storms today, and that they would likely develop rapidly into a squall line once they fired. I thought about a couple of possible targets – the Texas panhandle, where storms could be more isolated on the dryline, and the Kansas-Oklahoma border near Alva, which was not an unreasonable drive (always a consideration) and also had enough upper-level support and huge convective potential to make me think something interesting might happen there. Eventually, there was a tornado reported in the panhandle, but I had cast my luck with northern Oklahoma.

 

May 26, 2009: Florida is king of the shelf clouds. Here’s a beautiful layered gust front approaching the Brevard County coast from the west.

 

June 22, 2009: After days of unusually high temperatures of high 90s in the shade, the Storm Prediction Center put Brevard County, Florida, in a severe thunderstorm watch this evening. Storms broke late and brought with them nice lightning as they moved in fast from the north.

 

July 24, 2009: The evening began with a farewell to my husband’s brother – a memorial at Lone Cabbage Fish Camp in Cocoa, Florida. Then the skies opened. I had my camera, so when the gathering was over, I sought out the storm. This was one of the best nights I’ve seen for lightning in a long time here.

August 22, 2009: Hurricane Bill took pity on Florida and swept on by, but it delivered a boon to surfers in the form of big waves. Here are some shots on a beautiful beach day at the south end of Patrick Air Force Base (Satellite Beach).

 

December 14, 2009: A fog event right out of a science-fiction movie rolled into Brevard County on Dec. 14. When I drove to the barrier island in the late afternoon, the fog seemed to be enveloping only the beach communities. Then it moved inland. I got just a few photos in Cocoa Village of the Christmas lights in the fog.

 

 

I have extensive archives from my early storm chasing years and am consolidating them and moving them over to ChrisKridler.com from the old SkyDiary. In this instance, while there were some very nice Florida chases in 2007, I’m putting them into this one post with the highlights in a gallery.

Click on any photo to start a slide show of larger images with captions.

 

 

I have extensive archives from my early storm chasing years. I chronicled almost every day on the road, even bust days, at the old SkyDiary site, with lots of photos. In the interest of collecting everything in one place, I’m moving the highlights of the older chases over to ChrisKridler.com. 2006 was one of the worst chasing years in pursuit of storms, thanks to a crashing cold front, but it had a few moments.

8 May 2006

Chase time: Just a quick update. After a 21-hour drive, I’m in Broken Arrow, Okla., and not quite in position to chase today. I’ll need to do my forecast and drive some more to get there, wherever there is, but at least I feel like I’m back in Tornado Alley again. I love what one sees on the road: two billboards next to one another, one warning of fire danger, the other covered with flames advertising a barbecue joint. A sign that says “Watch for long logs” (insert your own joke here). Another for Toad Suck Park in Arkansas. Watermelons galore sold out of the backs of pickup trucks in Mississippi.

Update: I tried but didn’t see much today. Storms didn’t fire where people thought they should, though a big line of them formed in western Kansas, and I got a look. There were some pretty moments and a few good lightning bolts. It’s something and was a good shakedown cruise for gear, including the new ham radio. I’ve now met up with Scott McPartland, Dave Lewison, Pete Ventre and Jim Edds. Given a promised early start in the morning, I anticipate more sleep deprivation in my future. Now we’re at a terrible Days Inn in Great Bend that promised wi-fi, and it’s not working. My ceiling is leaking in the rain. And goodness knows if there really will be a promised hot waffle in the a.m. More later…

 

9 May 2006

The soggy and the sublime: After an unfulfilling chase yesterday, the hotel nightmare (even the advertised “hot waffle” was not the fresh-made thing you get at some hotels; it was a Kellogg’s toaster product), and continuing sleep deprivation, a chase finally was in the offing today. It provided some adrenaline and some pretty pictures, and that’s about all I can ask for.

Our party left Great Bend, Kansas, fairly early and headed south, checking data now and again to help us pick our target. The obvious choice was southeastern Oklahoma and the less obvious choice was north-west-central Texas. Finally, we settled on eastern OK. As half our party broke off north of Ada to say hi to Cloud 9 Tours, Jim Edds and I proceeded south and then east after getting a look at the towers going up in earnest on the boundary. It was imperative to get east, ahead of the line, or else it would be a day of core-punching. Not that we avoided cores entirely.

In McAlester, we waffled (again with the waffles!) about which storm to pick. A tornado warning was given for the storm to the south, but ours still looked good. We were about to give up on it when it became tornado warned, too. Then, on the west side of town, we spotted what appeared to be a rotating wall cloud. For a moment, I was wondering if we were about to have a tornado form over our heads. Then winds picked up like crazy and we thought we’d try to get east of it. Bad idea, or at least a bad road choice, not that there are any good roads out here in the tree-heavy hills. We got caught in serious horizontal winds —  I’d guess about 70mph — with flying debris, driving rain, very low visibility and hail. The core, in other words.

After more storm maneuvering and finding we’d be in the path of another tornado-warned storm, we slipped west back into town and got some very cool lightning shots, Jim with his HD video, me with some video and a lot of stills. This good photo opportunity did a lot to make the day memorable. Now our party is back together, along with Dave Patrick and Kristy Randall, and Mark Robinson and his friend Brian. I’ve spent a lot of time in McAlester today. The problem for tomorrow is that the risk area is in more bad chase territory and way farther east than I prefer to go. Meanwhile, after that, the Plains may be shut down in terms of severe weather. Should I stay or should I go?

11 May 2006

The end already? I’m way behind on updates because of the lack of high-speed Internet and all the driving, which equals no time. We’re in Mississippi, for goodness’ sake. That’s not where we’re supposed to be to chase “Tornado Alley” storms.

We had a good target yesterday but were behind the game all day due to the long distances involved. We got wet and saw some lightning, that’s about it.

I’m actually giving it up for now and hope to come back to the Alley at some later date.

 

Florida skies

 

2 September 2006

A dramatic shelf cloud formed from a line of storms in Brevard County, Florida, on September 2. First, the pileus cap on top of the storm tower glowed in rainbow colors as the sun caught it from behind. Then the shelf appeared. Here’s a stitched-together panorama of several images of the shelf cloud as seen from Rockledge, Florida.

A couple of neighborhood kids were flying kites at the high school ahead of the storm. This is not recommended behavior in a lightning storm, but it was kind of beautiful.