Severe Storm Photography from Spring 2005
All photos copyrighted by Dave Chapman
April 5th - May 8th:
| April 5th: In northeastern Oklahoma I see my first strong storm of the season. |
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| April 10th: Towers going up near Pratt, Kansas, around 4 pm. Winds are southeast at 15 to 20 mph on a mild spring day. |
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| Squall line develops north of Pratt. |
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| Backside of shelf cloud at sunset. |
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| April 20th: After a busted chase in northeast Colorado, I see my first supercell of the season as the sun is setting. This storm near Great Bend, Kansas, is dropping baseball size hail. |
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| Some of my favorite photos occur when my forecast turns out to be inaccurate and I end up on the wrong side of a storm. |
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| April 21st: Intercept this storm near Havensville, Kansas (northeast of Manhattan). |
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| Storm begins transition to outflow-dominated. Tornadic storms are in southeast Kansas on this day. |
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| Intense squall line just west of Cummings. Still in awe of scenes like this, I am thrilled to be in the Plains despite a tendency to find primarily non-tornadic storms. |
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| May 8th: On a marginal chase day, isolated storm is developing west of McPherson, Kansas. |
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| Looks like this may have some potential. |
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| But after a brief funnel cloud, strong downdrafts begin to take over. |
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| Developing shelf cloud over a Kansas wheat field. |
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| Another wheat field. |
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| Leading edge of squall line as it advances southeast. |
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| "Whale's mouth" turbulence on the bottom of shelf cloud. |
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| This scene is a good reminder of the potential magnificence of any severe thunderstorm on the Plains, even when conditions aren't favorable for supercells. |
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| The threat from this outflow-dominated storm is marginally severe straight-line winds and one-inch hail. |
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| At dusk, a new cell west of Wichita rotates briefly before merging with the squall line. |
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2005 Storm Pages:
Dave Chapman's Storm Chasing and Outdoor Photo Galleries