Severe Storm Photography from Spring 2008
All photos copyrighted by Dave Chapman
| May 1: Southeast Kansas Storms |
| April finishes quietly on the Plains, but May opens with a promising situation in southeast Kansas. This storm is southwest of Fredonia (not Freedonia, for Marx Brothers fans). |
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| Golf ball hail falls from the first storm as another develops further to the southwest. |
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| New storms continue developing to the southwest as the entire line weakens. |
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| Sean Casey and Josh Wurman's team. |
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| As dusk approaches, the anvil from a much stronger supercell dominates the southern sky. |
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| Mammatus at dusk. The best storms of the day were in northeast Oklahoma, although I always prefer the pastures of southeast Kansas over the hills and forests of eastern Oklahoma. |
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| May 7: North Texas Thunderstorms |
| Afternoon thunderstorm near Ringgold, a small town halfway between Wichita Falls and Gainesville. |
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| Nothing but outflow. |
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| Actually taken two days later at Lake Carl Blackwell, just west of Stillwater, Oklahoma. |
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| May 22: Western Kansas Supercells |
| Would you call this in as a tornado? Actually the tornado look-alike in the middle is a rainshaft. |
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| Wall cloud near the tiny town of Grigston, east of Scott City. |
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| The storm is racing north and I don't get a good photo again until it reaches I-70. |
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| Cold outflow reduces tornado potential and sends the chasers back east and then south to the next storm. |
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| Back to the south, near Pendennis, Kansas, a new supercell approaches. |
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| Powerful storm over Kansas farmland. It's racing north-northeast with only dirt roads to stay close. I decide to get a few miles further east, turn north and try to stay with it, but the storm is moving too fast. |
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| Brief glimpse of cone tornado eighteen miles southwest of Wakeeney (6:30 pm). At dusk, near Trego Center, I get a look at a well-formed wall cloud and, a few minutes later, another tornado. |
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| May 23: Western Kansas Supercell (Day 2) |
| Good set-up for today in far western Kansas, closer to the jet stream and dryline. But the better storms develop in west-central Kansas. I catch this one near Ness City, but visibility is poor. Nevertheless, a stunning sight of a powerful supercell. |
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| After driving through Ness City surrounded by close CGs (cloud-to-ground lightning strikes...think flash-bang), I set up east of town. This is my final view of the storm before I decide to intercept another better-organized storm to the south. Unfortunately that tornadic supercell turns east and stays out of reach. |
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2008 Storm Pages:
Dave Chapman's Storm Chasing and Outdoor Photo Galleries