Mammatus

Today's photo is of a cloud phenomenon that is very familiar to people who live on the great plains and the midwest -- Mammatus. In the foreground are the weather instrumentation of one of Vortex 2's probe vehicles. The instrument at middle measures dewpoint and temperature.

This was shot in western Kansas on June 10, 2009, after the probe vehicles pulled off the road into a small gravel lot, waiting for instructions. Eventually they were ordered to start running transects -- basically, 3 mile runs back and forth through the storm environment, collecting data the entire way. Later on this data will be fed into computer models (along with data from the radar units, etc.) and science will happen.

This was my last day on the Vortex chase -- a bittersweet end to a long journey. Bitter because chasing storms amazes me, but sweet because I was coming back to my wife and my life in Nebraska, which I'd take over chasing storms any day.

Mothership

Today's photo was taken on June 9, 2009 (and is the same storm as the previous two photos.) This storm was a happy surprise, given the relatively low instability in the atmosphere. As Erik Rasmussen put it the next morning, "I'm beginning to think that CAPE (i.e., instability) is not the key ingredient in supercells."

Vortex 2 arrived on this storm fairly early, positioned, and then watched the storm develop and move directly towards us. As a chaser, I don't usually allow the mesocyclone (the actual rotating part of the storm) to go directly over my head, lest a tornado suddenly drop on top of me. These guys did it all the time, though, since they had enough radar trucks to ensure that it was safe -- and this storm was no exception. I sat there with the probe trucks, watching this beautiful storm slide closer and closer, until it was finally overhead. At that point, everyone repositioned to the east.

LP

Today's photo is of a LP (or "Low Precipitation") supercell on June 9, 2009, near Dodge City, Kansas, This is a storm that started out like a classic supercell before transitioning into this beautiful LP. At frame center, you can see the inflow base with slight lowering. To the right, you can see a small precipitation core quite far from the updraft base. Just beautiful structure. While I don't have an special insight into the science end of Vortex 2, I imagine that it was good that they had a chance to scan and observe this storm, seeing as it transitioned from a classic to an LP, and that seems (to me) to be an interesting thing to collect data on.

Needle in the Haystack

Click photo to supersize

Today's photo is a panoramic stitch from a beautiful supercell near Dodge City, Kansas, June 9, 2009. This storm was truly a diamond in the rough on what was supposed to be a crazy day of chasing in eastern Kansas. The steering committee of V2 quickly decided that the setup in eastern Kansas wasn't going to pan out, so they booked west into what most chasers would have called a "crap setup" relying on nothing more than a very educated guess by their forcasters. Result? They found one of the most photogenic storms of the day. While this never produced a tornado, it was easily one of the prettiest storms I shot in 2009, eventually transitioning into an LP supercell.

The original file is around 10,000 pixels wide.

Whoa! A Laptop!

This picture cracks me up. This guy probably has a perfectly legit reason to take a picture of his laptop (he's part of Vortex 2, a two year science mission into studying tornadoes), but there's something hilarious about the juxtaposition of the beautiful mayhem behind him. This photo compliments yesterday's shot -- it's the same storm at roughly the same time. You can't ask for better lighting than this!

*edit* A commenter claims this is a PR person for Lenovo, which is quite possible, since Lenovo supplied V2 with a good deal of kit and sent a rep to see how things were going. If this is a Lenovo PR guy, then that's an awesome ending to this story -- I guess that's definately a legit reason to take a picture of your laptop in a thunderstorm!