A Few Of My Favorite Thunderstorms

A thunderstorm looms over an Addison County,
Vermont farm house in 2013

It's one of those lazy days of summer in which I don't feel like doing much, or thinking about anything.

Since there's a chance of scattered thunderstorms late this afternoon and evening, I'm just going to throw up a few of my favorite Vermont thunderstorm photos in recent years.

We tend not to get those super dramatic storms like in the Great Plains and Midwest, but Vermont summer storms are impressive, but maybe in a more subdued, artistic fashion

Today's storms are unlikely to be severe, but they might be on the strong side in a couple places. They might even approach severe limits east of the Green Mountains, but those would be very few and far between.

If these storms develop, and it it IS an if, I hope they'll at least be photogenic, like past storms I've seen.

Very likely you've seen them before, but they're worth another look.  Click on each image to make them bigger and easier to see.

I'll even throw in a video at the bottom of this post.

So here we go:

A distant thunderstorm at sunset a few years ago.
Thie photo was taken in St. Albans, Vermont.
The storm was in northern Addison County,
Vermont, so quite a ways away. 

A menacing shelf cloud over St. Albans Bay, Vermont, July 2013.

Chaotic skies over St. Albans, Vermont May, 2014

Starksboro, Vermont, June 2015

Developing thunderstorm looking west from St. Albans, Vermont
July, 2016

A thunderhead north of St. Albans, Vermont creates a profile
portrait, July, 2019

Developing thunderstorm at sunset, June 2020

Now a video: One of the most intense, favorite thunderstorms I've experienced, July 4, 2012. I feel bad for the dude on the bicycle 18-19 seconds in:

Vermont Sky Photos Of 2019: Some Of My Favorites

One of the cloud photos I took in Vermont last year. 

Well, three months late, but I finally got around to doing my annual video of some of my favorite sky and weather photos from Vermont during 2019.

As you can see in the slide show, pretty much all of the photos were taken in northwestern Vermont.

Also, the photos are pretty heavy on the summer season rather than winter, spring and autumn.

That's because the sky, at least in my opinion, is so much more interesting during that time of year.

Here's the video:

Ice Storms That Aren't Destructive Are Actually Pretty Cool

Icy berries in my St. Albans, Vermont yard on Sunday.

Now that we know the northwestern Vermont ice storm of 2020 was not as bad as feared, we can actually enjoy the beauty and oddities that freezing rain brings.

Oh sure, some people lost power for a little while, a few people have damaged trees, and the roads weren't all that great in the immediate aftermath of the ice.

But given we avoided wholesale destruction (at least in Vermont) of the Great Ice Storm of 1998, it was good to go out and actually enjoy the ice-altered scenery.

Since temperatures will probably stay below freezing, probably until Tuesday, and there should be a little sunshine here and there to light up the ice, there will probably be more photogenic moments with the ice still covering everything.

An icy bramch in my St. Albans, Vermont yard on Sunday.

Some of the photos that I took for this post are pretty. Some just journalistically document what the ice did.

Either way, it was still good to get out and examine what icy artistry Mother Nature gave us.  When you see this post, definitely respond with your own photos of what you saw in the ice. I'd love to see it.

I"m not a big fan of winter. It's my fourth favorite season, to be honest. Plus, most of Vermont missed out on the ice, so the great majority of Vermonters missed out on the beauty of the ice. But that's OK, there will be other days, with snow, with sun, with ice, with frost, that will highlight Vermont's beauty

Just be ready with your cameras, folks!

Scroll down and click on all the photos in this photos in this post to make the bigger and easier to see.

Birch trees bend under the weight of ice  left by this weekend's
freezing rain in Alburgh, Vermont. 

Ice laden birch trees sag under the weight of ice Sunday in
Alburgh, Vermont, blocking this driveway. 

A jumble of branches and ice on this St. Albans, Vermont shrub.

A tree sags under the ice in Alburgh, Vermont Sunday, while in a background
you can see part of another tree snapped off because of the
weight of the ice. 

An appropriately named street in Alburgh, Vermont Sunday.

An icy white pine branch in St. Albans, Vermont Sunday. 

Vermont Weather Photos, 2018

For those of you who might not have wanted to go through my entire written year in review the other day, here's a quick video of some of my favorite weather and cloud photos of Vermont in 2018. 

I didn't put in background music. Just come up with your own, as your taste might be better than mine!

Here it is:

Another Storm Video You Should Watch

Last month, I gave a totally rave review to a storm chasing video by Pecos Hank.

In that post, I mentioned in passing my other favorite storm chaser, Mike Olbinski.

Olbinski usually focuses on Arizona. Every year, in the mid to late summer moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean finds its way into the Desert Southwest, creating a "rainy season" of sorts. It's called the seasonal monsoon.

This rainy season in Arizona and surrounding areas  consists of thunderstorms that develop over the region. Unlike the humid East, where haze often obscures the delicate yet powerful structures of thunderstorms, the visibility in the deserts remains great.

Most of what happens with the best of these thunderstorms are microbursts and haboobs, which are thunderstorm-generated dust storms.

Olbinski's beautiful time lapse videos usually focus on these microbursts and dust storms. When you speed up the footage of these phenomeneno, like Olbinski does, you really see the power of these storms.

As in the Pecos Hank video,  I'm not going to provide you with the link, so you can click on it and give Olbinski more hits. At least I think that's how it works.

Just click on this sentence to view the video, called Monsoon V.

Wild, Icy Optical Effects In New Hampshire Wows Meteorologists, Sky Watchers

This photo by Alex Kotzias, taken from a New Hampshire
ski lift recently shows at least nine really cool sky
and light effects caused by ice crystals. To have so
many effects at once is extremely rare.

Interesting things can happen in the sky when it's cold and snowy and ice crystals dance in the atmosphere like countless tiny diamonds.

Such was the case recently around Franconia, New Hampshire when ice crystals and sunshine combined to create some surreal optical effects. Hat tip to "Scoop" Cronin for alerting me to all this.

Some of these effects in the sky are common, some are pretty rare. And it's almost unheard of to have nine - count them, nine - of these effects going on in the skyh at once.

The Washington Post Capital Weather Gang took note of this and the reporters involved couldn't believe the great photos. Neither can I. They got one photo from a New Hampshire Department of Transportation worker who caught a photo of the remarkable sky, but "only" captured seven of the atmospheric events.

Capital Weather Gang ran a story about it, and the original photo was topped by another, taken by Alex Kotzias as he road a chairlift at Cannon Mountain Ski Area.  All of the odd things in the sky depend upon the presence of ice crystals.

A common but beautiful phenomenon in the photos is a halo which is a multi-colored band forming a 22 arc around the sun.

Then there's a parhelic circle, which the Capital Weather Gang describes as a monochromatic Hula-Hoop piercing the sun itself. These thigs form at the same height in the sky as the sun itself.

Where the parhelic circle and the 22 degree arc of the halo intersect, that's where you get a sun dog, which is a brighter spot of light. They sort of look like small companions of the sun. Kind of like a dog next to its human companion.

The light show elements described above are fairly common, but other things in the photo are not. One is called a Parry arc and the other is an upper tangent arc, both located above the location of the sun.

Another photo from New Hampshire shows seven of the effects
caused by ice crystals. Capital Weather Gang labeled
them for us. 

Parry arcs were first observed during William Edward Parry's naval search for a Northwest Passage in the Arctic on April 8 1820. Accompanying the Parry arc in the photos is an upper tangent arc. The Capital Weather Gang says both of these flatten out as the day progresses, and eventually merge.

Above these two things are a superlateral arc and a circumzenithal arc, which are above the Parry and upper tanget arcs. The superlateral arc curves down, while the circumzenithal arc looks like a bowl.

On top of everything else, the photo from the ski lift shows diamond dust. Those are little white specks which are ice crystals closer to the photographer.

The photos from New Hampshire are filled out by two more common light displays. A shaft of light called a sun pillar extends directly upward from the sun. Clouds low to the horizon cast bands of shadows from the sunlight. These bands of shadows and light are called crepsuscular rays.

I'll never remember the names of most of the things Capital Weather Gang describes and neither will you. The important thing is how cool and beautiful all these are. It's a good reminder to look toward our rare bursts of sun in our dark winters to see some really gorgeous stuff created by something as simple as ice crystals.

I've noticed all of these things described with the sun except for the Perry arc and upper tangent arc numerous times. But mostly you see only a couple of these at a time. To have nine in one photograph is just stunning.  Wish I was in Franconia, New Hampshire that day.

A Pecos Hank Storm Chasing Video Is Absolutely Beautiful

A still shot from Pecos Hank's new video "A Storm of Beauty"

I'm going to take a break today from discussiong snow and winter cold and highlight a new video by my favorite storm chaser, Pecos Hank. It's his best yet.  

In his Texas drawl, he explains in the new video called "A Storm Of Beauty" some of the most breathtaking aspects of big thunderstorms. He explains how and where to view them, and how to photograph them.  

For us Vermonters, who don't exactly live in Tornado Alley, Pecos (real name Hank Schyma) highlights some of the wonders of thunderstorms that we occasionally see and enjoy in Vermont, and pretty much anywhere else.

 These include shelf clouds, mammatus clouds, and lightning. (Though you should always try to view and photograph lightning from a safe place.)

What I've always loved about the Pecos Hank videos is he avoids the yelling and screaming and dangerous moves that bring the chasers too close or even inside the tornadoes. For Pecos, he pays attention to art.

Pecos Hank, like fellow storm chaser Mike Olbinski, appreciates the allure of thunderstorms, which frankly are my favorite kind of weather anyway.  Most of the "A Storm Of Beauty" footage is time lapse.

Pecos is especially talented at establishing the foreground scenes in his videos. He outdoes himself with this talent in "A Storm of Beauty."

Below the drama he's capturing in the skies, we have scenes like a well-kept farmhouse, or some old, abandoned trucks, or grain bins, or train tracks, with a train zooming by as lightning flashes overhead.

You can see how Pecos Hank embraces the Great Plains of the United States. He's really a part of that world, and it shows.   He is also an accomplished musician, and he feature his music in the video.

One spectacular example of his music in his song and especially video for "Drive Under The Moon." in which he uses some of his storm footage for a haunting and mysterious music video.  Also definitely worth the watch.  Seems like all his videos - both storm and music - are moody.

"A Storm of Beauty" ranks right up there as easily one of the best storm videos I've ever seen. Every weather geek, or photographer, or people who just love nature should definitely watch.

To be fair to Pecos Hank, I won't display the video in this post. You'll need to click directly on the link below, so he directly gets hits on his video and YouTube channel.

Click on this this blue sentence to see the video. It's totally, totally worth it. 

Airline Pilot Takes Awesome Photos Of Storms While In Flight

"Pacific Storm" by Santiago Borja Lopez, an airline pilot and
photographer with a fascination for storms 

An Ecuador-based airline pilot has a beautiful side job involving weather: He takes incredible photos of lightning-lit thunderstorms from the cockpit.

According to Diyphotography.net, Santiago Borja Lopez, captures nighttime thunderstorms from a Boeing 767 he operates on long haul flights.

No worries if you're on a plane he's piloting, though. He takes the photos from the control seats, and takes the photos while he is off-duty. (Pilots often take turns at the controls.)

There's an example or two on this here web page blog thingy, but definitely check out his website for much, much more.  (Click on the images in this post to make them bigger and easier to see.)

"Curia" By Santiago Borja Lopez, an aerial view of
a nightime storm approaching Panama City. 

More Random, Really Cool Weather Images

Satellite view taken Monday of most of New England
shrouded in snow cover.

In my continuing hunt for cool weather media, I'll share a few more finds from recent weather events that I think are really cool.

In any of the photos you see in this post, click on them to make them bigger and easier to see.

The first one is a real color satellite image taken amid clear skies this past, of New England, eastern New York and a bit of southern Quebec after that big snowstorm we got a little over a week ago.

In it, all but southeastern New England is encased in snow. The warm March sun had caused the thinner snow cover in and around Cape Cod to begin retreating northward.]

You can see the large dark spot on the northwestern edge of Vermont. That's the still open, ice-free water of Lake Champlain.

The snow also allows you to see the land features and land uses better. Notice much of the Champlain Valley and southeastern Quebec look whiter than other areas.

That's because there's more open fields in these locations. The spine of the Green Mountains and the Adirondacks are darker, because of all the trees and lack of open spaces.

A dense March 14 snow squall over Lake Michigan and Chicago

Smaller, frozen lakes also show up as bright white.

It's a pretty stunning post-snowstorm image, isn't it?

The next photo was taken March 14 from downtown Chicago.

Chicago can get lake effect snows off of Lake Michigan, especially if the wind is coming from the northeast, off the water.

The photo, taken from a high rise, shows the waters of Lake Michigan abruptly being hidden by a thick curtain of snow from a squall.

After going through January and February with no snow on the ground, winter finally hit Chicago in mid-March with a series of snowy and cold days.

Spring is returning to Chicago, however. The forecast high temperature on Friday there is 74 degrees.

Next, we turn to Hutchinson, Kansas, scene of widespread wild fires earlier this month. The winter in the central and southern Plains was dry, and that region has been subjected to repeated bouts of record warmth, super dry air and high winds all winter and early spring.

Aerial view of home near
Hutchinson, Kanasas spared
from a huge wildfire 

The result was the worst wildfires on record. Kansasans are calling the wildfires "our Katrina," referencing the 2005 hurricane calamity in New Orleans.

The wild fires earlier this month killed seven people and thousands of cattle caught in the fast moving flames. Many other cows were badly injured in the fires and ranchers had the heartbreaking task of taking out their rifles and shooting them to put the animals out of their severe misery and pain.

The photo in this post depicts one of the lucky ones. It shows a house that survived the wildfires near Hutchinson, Kansas, even as everything for miles around burned to a crisp

After a break, the wildfire threat has returned this week. Hundreds of Boulder, Colorado residents had to be evacuated due to a wildfire Sunday, which was fortunately contained.

Today, there's an extreme risk of dangerous wildfires in eastern New Mexico, the Texas panhandle and southeastern Colorado.

Let's hope they get some rain soon.

Also, here in the United States, we're ramping up into tornado season, too. There've already been some deadly outbreaks over the winter, so things are not off to a good start.

March 9 tornado in Germany 

Starting today, and continuing daily for the next week or so in different parts of the Plains, Midwest and South, there will be a threat of severe storms as we've entered a weather pattern that features such weather.

Of course, tornadoes don't only happen in the United States. They can happen almost anywhere. On March 9, there was a particularly picturesque tornado in, of all places, Wurzburg, Bavaria, Germany.

The tornado damaged the roofs of up to 80 homes. 

Tornadoes do take place from time to time in Germany and other parts of Europe. It's quite unusual to get one this far north in Europe this early in the season, however.

The tornado, as you can see in the photo, was really striking, lit up white by the late afternoon sun against dark clouds, with a rainbow crossing above it.

Elsewhere, a small tornado passed through the Brisbane, Australia airport, causing a scare but not causing much damage.

Here's the video, below. Note the tail end of the video is not that exciting, just a local weather report. But the tornado is cool:

Random Images And Videos Of Really Cool Weather Phenomenon

Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds over Churchchrist, New Zealand.

I often run across images and videos on social media about weather that doesn't exactly fit what I want to tell you about, but are cool nonetheless.

So why not share them anyway?

The first image is of a rather rare cloud formation and one of my favorites: Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds. The photo was taken at an unspecified date over Christchurch, New Zealand.

The clouds, as you can see, look like breaking ocean waves. They are named for Lord Kelvin and Hermann von Helmholtz, who studies the physics of the atmospheric instability that creates the clouds.

The clouds form when two different layers of the atmosphere move at different speeds. The upper layer of air is moving faster than the lower levels of the air when these clouds form. The higher winds in the upper layr will sometimes scoop the top of the cloud layer and form these wave-like clouds.



A gorgeous thunderstorm over Grenada, Spain

Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds are not dangerous, and don't produce severe weather. But they are a sign that the air is very unstable, and aircraft flying through areas with these clouds can get in trouble.

I've never personally witnessed Kelving-Helmholtz clouds, and being a weather geek, seeing the clouds is definitely on my bucket list.

The next photo in this post is not a terribly unusual weather phenomenon, but it's a gorgeous photo of a thunderstorm over Granada, a Spanish city in the foothills of that country's Sierra Nevada mountains.  

The Alhambra Palace, a luxury hotel, is in the foreground. Between that building and those dramatic clouds, it makes for just a gorgeous photo.

A dramatic looking but non-lethal avalanche in Juneau, Alaska recently
r

It was taken by Jose Luis Hens Terron.

The next photo was taken on March 3 in Juneau, Alaska.

Amid cold, blue skies, an avalanche descended from the steep mountains surrounding the city. The avalanche caused no deaths or injuries, and damage was minimal.

Pretty cool image of such a snow slide.

Finally, we have some cool images of severe thunderstorms developing in Nebraska about a week and a half ago.

The satellite feed here is mesmerizing, if you are a weather geek like me.

I'll have more images in future posts, because they're piling up left and right, but here's that Nebraska storm outbreak video:

"Drowning World" Photographer Has Striking Images Of Extreme Flood Victims

A lot of the scientists are telling us that among the many awful things climate change is causing is extreme storms and floods.

It isn't all heat and fires (See: Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada.)

The floods worldwide do see to be coming fast and furiously, seeming striking somewhere every week.

 Photographer Gideon Mendel has been going to many of these floods since 2007, taking him to places as diverse as Brazil, India, the United States, Britain, Nigeria and Thailand.

Mendel calls his project "a hazy middle groud between documentary and art, with a bit of activism thrown in."

He said most people think if climate change as involving distant glaciers melting or a stranded polar bear in the Arctic somewhere.

But Mendel says he wants to show that people are being affected in profound ways by climate change right now.

To do that, he poses people standing in the flood waters in or near their homes. He has them face the camera with pretty intense stares - as if to accuse all of us of contributing to the climate change that has devastated their lives.


These are the most effective photos that I've seen in his collection, I think. The expressions on the flood victims' faces are this terrible mix of pain, anger, sadness, resignation and defiance.

You can see a couple examples of these portraits in this post.  (Click on the images to make them bigger and really get a good look at them.)

Mendel also has many photos of water lines in homes, and images of people's personal photographs ruined by floodwater.  

Of course, each flood Mendel documents have many causes. But climate change is tending to make floods worse, so chances are the inundations he's showing are worse than what they otherwise would have been

H/T Washington Post for the this.

Here is a video of Mendel further explaining his project and showing more of his incredible images.

Another Spectacular Time Lapse Video by Nicholas Wegner

Nicholaus Wegner has released a new timelapse video of
storms, and the video is absolutely gorgeous. 

A little over a year ago, I highlighted a spectacular time lapse video of severe HIgh Plains storms by photographer Nicholaus Wegner. 

It was called Stormscapes 2, a followup to a previous, similarly named video. The photography and the awesomeness of the storms is worth viewing again and again.

Now Wegner is back with Stormscapes 3, a time l lapse compilation of the storms he chased during 2015.

He's really outdone himself with this one.  It is a gorgeous video any weather geek, and anybody else for that matter will want to watch over and over, just to experience Wegner and nature's art.

His forte are supercell thunderstorms, and other extreme spring and summer storms on the High Plains of Wyoming, Colorado and other spots in the region.

Wegner captures the fascinating and sometimes abrupt these dangerous storms undergo as they loom over the remote prairies, hills and farmsteads in the West.

On Stormcapes3, my favorite part is the energizing ending with the all the lightning. Wegner advices against watching that segment of the video if you're sensitive to strobe lights and rapid-fire flashes.

The best way to watch the video, below, is to use full screen and have on some high quality headphones, as the music is wonderfully synchronized to the video.

Hat tip to Slate for alerting us to this new video.

Maybe The Coolest Tornado Photo Ever

I'm no expert, but I imagine it's next to impossible to photograph a tornado at night.

It can be dangerous to photograph tornadoes any time of day, what with their unpredictability, all that wind and annoying flying debris you get with these things if you're too close.

But at night it's even worse. You don't see them except during brief lightning flashes or electrical power flashes that happen when a tornado trashes its way through a utility line or transformers.

That's why I haven't seen too many good nighttime tornado photos and videos.

But mostly nocturnal tornado outbreak in Texas and Kansas Monday evening proved to be photogenic for some talented photographers.

This included one of the best photos I've ever seen of a tornado, at any time of day, the one in this post. It was taken by Jenny Brown of Texas Storm Chasers. 

Click on the image to make it bigger and easier to see.

The photo shows a Texas supercell near Pampa, lit up by a big lightning bolt. You can see at the base of the supercell, way off in the distance, a large tornado. Above the supercell, you can see stars serenely twinkling.

The image is somehow calming, even though you know there's a dangerous tornado in the photo. I love the bluish tint to the clear skies above contrasted with the redish llight at the bottom, presumably from car headlights.

The composition and light of this photo is so perfect. Congratulations to Jenny Brown for this awesome photo. Go to  her Facebook page and check out more. And maybe you could contact her to buy prints of this photo, or maybe some of her other awesome images.

Mike Olbinski Strikes Again With Awesome Storm Time Lapse Compilation

Mike Olbinski strikes again with his new monsoon
storm time lapse compilation. Just awesome.  

I've become a big fan of photographer and storm chaser Mike Olbinski.

Some of his work has already been featured in this here weather blog thingy.

However,  you can never get too much of Mike Olbinski.

He says he logged 48 days and 17,000 miles, mostly in Arizona during the summer monsoon storm season capturing these storms.

He's collected images of the storms into an artistic time lapse compilation that is just mesmerizing to watch over and over again.

This is true whether or not you're a weather geek.

I love how in many of the segments, you can see the thunderstorm microbursts heavily crashing to the ground. I'm sure whoever or whatever was under those microbursts had quite a jolt of wind and rain, to say the least!

He captures the bubbling up of towering thunderheads, strobe light lightning at night that makes you almost feel like you're in a bad 1980s nightclub, and dust storms blasting across the desert landscape.

Here's the video:

Yet Another Gorgeous Time Lapse Of Severe Storms

I found yet another time lapse compilation of severe storms and this one is absolutely gorgeous.

Image from "A Storm of Color", a time lapse compilation
by Pecos Hank.  

It's by Pecos Hank, a full time storm chaser with a great YouTube channel.

In this video, I'm not super crazy about the narration, but the videography is exquisite.

I especially like how Pecos Hank often frames the scene with a human scale landscape or surroundings.

This is just brilliant and beautiful. Watch:

Stormscapes Video by Nicolaus Wegner Is Beyond Awesome

An ominous, beautiful wall cloud in a severe storm,
photographed by Nicolaus Wegner.  

Those of you who read this here blog thing know I like weather porn.

So do a lot of other weather geeks. Weather porn is totally safe for work.

It's images and videos of storms and other extreme weather that is thrilling to watch, dramatic to see. It's kind of a rush.

I'm always looking for "weather porn videos" like some sort of creep in a scary adult video parlor in a bad part of town.

Except, since it's innocent enough (No sex! No nudity! No weirdness!) I can be open about it, and can just enjoy this little foible I have. And share it.

I think I found what is maybe the best weather porn video I've ever come across.

It's time lapse videos of storms, tornadoes and other violent weather in Wyoming and surrounding states.

It was put together by Nicolaus Wegner, who, with his wife Daow, run LightAlive photography in Wyoming. 

Nicolaus Wegner captured his wife Daow, confronting
a beautiful, severe storm.  

The video, Stormscapes 2, is meticulously edited to music, and it's just an awesome concert of nature at its most violent and beautiful.

Wegner spent a lot of time driving around Wyoming, South Dakota and nearby other states to capture these big storms.

Just an amazing video to watch. And pop on over to the LightAlive photography web site, because he's got awesome still images of storms and other nature pics.

They do a lot of great portraiture and wedding photography, too, but their nature images are absolutely amazing.

Wegner's weather art are (hint, hint) the perfect Christmas gift for the storm, nature and art lover.

Here's his amazing Stormscapes 2 video. (It's best to watch it in full screen mode):





Stormscapes 2 from Nicolaus Wegner on Vimeo.