Supercell at Sunset

This was the storm we nearly gave up on. We spent most of April 23, 2006, sitting in the parking lot of various hotels in Hays, Kansas, quietly sucking down free wifi internet and watching for any sign of initiation -- the moment when storms start firing. It was getting late, and the day seemed a bust. That's how it goes sometimes; you drive forever, show up where you expect to see a storm, and nothing happens.

But not that day; at around six in the evening, we noticed rows of cumulus clouds stacking up to our east on the NOAA satellite images. Cumulus clouds are those big cottonballs you see drifting overhead in the spring and summer; when you see them starting bunch up and get taller, a storm could be brewing. So we jetted east of Hays, ran into fellow chasers (hey Amos!), and watched this storm evolve over our head. Beautiful, just beautiful.

This was shot atop a hill in rural northcentral Kansas, looking west just after sunset. I only took a few from here -- it was one of those "run out, take a picture, run back in" type deals, as standing atop the tallest hill for miles with a metal tripod in an electrical storm is one way to get yourself your own FARK headline for all the wrong reasons.