June 10th Photo

It's been awhile since I've posted! I don't have much to say other than I was in Los Angeles in late October with TVN while they did their promotional tour. We had a blast! It's almost winter time, so hibernating is probably what I'll be doing until spring. I'll occasionally post some photos of this year, if I have time. This blog will eventually be dead whenever we get the new website up.

Below is a photo I shot of a beautiful supercell in Eastern Colorado on June 10th of this year. (If you look closely in the foreground, you'll see Robert Seaman filming for the Storm Chasers show) This is why I chase.

Edit: The Facebook link on the right doesn't work right now......I've temporarily deactivated my account until the first chase of the season.

Kansas State Record for Hail Video

I'm not the greatest videographer, but here's the September 15th Video I shot with the 5D Mark II of the hail storm in Goddard, Kansas. Listen at 1:05-1:07 as you can hear a stone whizzing through the air before it impacts. I'm beginning to think around 8 inches is all the world will ever be able to successfully measure as larger stones will not be able to hold as they impact, unless the ground is saturated and can absorb them somehow. There were stones >8 inches.....probably a 10" one somewhere that day, but for now 7.75 inches is where the Kansas state record hail stone will stand!



See my previous blog post for pictures of this storm after the video!

2011 Weather Calendar

The 2011 Weather Calendar I helped create is available for purchase now. I think all but 2 shots are my pictures, if anyone is interested. They are on sale for $9.95 and can be shipped internationally, if needed!

September stands for Structure?

I've seen better storm structure in the last couple of weeks than I have in May or June some years.

September 1st - near Hoisington, Kansas: This nearly stationary supercell provided nearly 4 hours of eye candy and moved perhaps 15 miles. Got some great time-lapse footage of this.



September 15th - from Goddard, KS to east of Winfield, KS: Witnessed state-record sized hail (not that it matters...but I can almost guarantee world record hail fell within feet of my location, I just didn't have the sack to jump out and get one). Saw several gustnadoes and one brief, fully condensed tornado near Mulvane...followed by this amazing structure at dusk east of Winfield, KS. Was EXTREMELY sick this day...but couldn't sit it out, especially when I had the day off.






September 18th - Ozawkie, Kansas: Northeast Kansas is really worse than Iowa, but for some reason it provided some decent structure and one attempt at tornadogenesis before gusting out.

Couple of Shots, TVN Calendar

Here are a couple of shots from the last chase, one a panoramic, the other at initiation. I have a lot more from this day I'll eventually get around to posting as well.





Chris Chittick and I have been working on and now have sent off the proofs for a TVN calendar which should be available by early next week. It includes a lot of my photographs (all but 2 I believe) and contains my best photograph to date in it on May 22nd...which I can not share on the internet until after the episode airs!

I'll probably make a post when it's available online to purchase for anyone interested. I'm pretty excited since I've never really sold any of my photographs for others to purchase.

Shelf Cloud Panoramas

Below, are some attempts at panoramic photos of shelf clouds I've taken this year. The first in Nebraska near Columbus and the second just west of Quincy, Illinois. I didn't shoot them vertical, but rather horizontal, and I think they turned out alright...with maybe the exception of the Quincy one, since the 16-35 lens I was shooting shows distortion on the horizon from the wide angle.

Had another great storm photo day yesterday, where I chased a SE moving supercell from Salina, KS into the Flint Hills. Had no GPS on my laptop, so keeping up with it through the Flint Hills was quite a challenge. I lost count on the dead end roads and one-lane Farmer Bob roads I took; thank God they weren't muddy! No time-lapses, but shot more panoramic photos of a stunning shelf cloud at sunset. The supercell actually made one attempt at tornadogenesis as the RFD surged and wrapped around the north side close to the K-4 / K-15 intersection, before gusting out.

After that, an amazing sunset with golden fields emerged, as the decaying storm left a variety of colors on the backside. I must have taken 500 pictures yesterday, not wanting to miss anything. The Flint Hills are really a hidden gem in Kansas, and adding a photogenic storm to things at sunset really makes things serene. I was chasing solo and really wished I had someone there to share how amazing it was, but sometimes it's probably better to be alone. Pictures of yesterday at some point.

Recent Lightning Shots

After living on the road with the TVN crew for several months (and driving 25,000 + miles), I've returned back to my normal life and it just isn't quite as exciting. So I venture out on these 'under the ridge' days, (where pulse storms generally form from just heat and a weak cap...or from enough convergence along an old outflow boundary/ weak cold front) and try to regain that same intensity as before, but I generally just get disappointed.

I've been focusing on doing more time-lapse photography with the 5D Mark II and using an intervalometer which is amazing and I'll probably make a video in the next couple of years. The plan for 2011, is re-join the TVN crew till around the middle of June, then venture out solo for a couple of months after that--chasing the Northern Plains and Canada for slower moving storms/supercells and doing strictly time-lapse photography of everything I encounter.

Below are some lightning photos I've taken in the past couple of weeks...more to come at some point. You can catch my other blog posts over at tornadovideos.net as well,as I'm assisting over there when needed.

Yazoo City, MS Damage Panorama

Above is a panorama of the Yazoo City, MS tornado damage taken on April 24th, 2010 approximately 3 hours after the EF-4 tornado tore through the city. We were on 2-3 hours of sleep in 72 hours time, after driving from the Texas Panhandle to SW Iowa, then to Mississippi virtually non stop. We drove well over 2,300 miles in this time frame. The tornado was extremely rain-wrapped and moving at a dangerous 65 mph. We had a very close call, but luckily avoided the tornado. It was very sad to see such devastation once again and a day many of us will never forget.

More Photos from This Spring

I'm gonna have to re-arrange this blog to make room for the bigger sizes I've done at some point, so it'll probably look a little funky till then. I'm not exactly a web designer either! Speaking of websites, now that Reed and I have a little more time, we plan on getting the new website up in the coming months.

And since 90 percent of my images have either the TVN crew or Dominator in them (being behind them all the time), they won't permit me to upload those photos until the show/episodes have aired. Being the driver, and as much as we could never stop due to the constant attempts at intercepting the tornado, much of these were taken while driving.

Another Amazing Day....

More to come in the next several weeks as I have more time...as the season winds down. Best structure + tornado I've ever seen along with best rope-out as well. It doesn't get much better than this. Also observed softball-sized hail which manhandled our vehicles. Made the mistake of shooting jpeg vs. RAW for these pictures and shot + 1/3 stop a little too high (shooting this from the sitting position on the south side of the vehicle as 2 inch stones were carried from the northeast). It was not fun trying to get back in.

Update, Matt Hughes

Brief update here, we've intercepted approximately 22 tornadoes since my last blog post. Here's one of the pictures (I have probably 500 more that I'll show at some point). Check out another one here on Discovery's website.

Below is a picture west of Aberdeen, SD on May 22. Click here for larger version.


Matt Hughes, of The Storm Report, passed away on Wednesday. Matt was a great friend, an amazing father and a great storm chaser. His funeral will be held on Tuesday in Valley Center, KS. I'll write more about this later when I get time. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends.

Quick Update

Wow, almost 6 months since I've updated this! It's been a crazy April, so far, witnessing/documenting a legitimate 11 tornadoes and hopefully more coming this week. If you are still following this blog, the best way to keep up with me is through my facebook page where I'm updating pictures/updates on storm chasing throughout the Spring.

I've been chasing with the TVN team this Spring and will continue to do so until at least mid-June, so check out their LIVE streaming page to follow us on our live storm chasing journey this Spring. Looks like a marginal chase this Thursday (we've been chasing everything) and things really start to ramp up by the end of the weekend into early next week.

Below are some photos I've taken this Spring of storm chases, with about 20 gigs more to process as I write this. Unfortunately, we were in Yazoo City, MS minutes after the tornado struck the town and below is a picture of the actual tornado. Last Friday, we also witnessed the deadly Scotland, AR tornado as well. It never gets easier seeing the destruction and chaos first hand. Seeing the Yazoo City damage/chaos really brought me back to the Greensburg, KS tornado, which just happens to be the 3 year anniversary of it today. It's pretty difficult to put into words, photos, or even video of what it's really like.

This is only my 3rd day off since beginning this trip a month ago, and will be remembering all of the victims of the violent tornadoes I've witnessed over the past three years.

New website is still under construction but should have it up in the next month or two.

I have a new camera and a variety of solid lenses, but am having trouble accessing the RAW files, but will be updating my facebook page/flickr soon once I get things resolved. Tornado pics, structure, damage photos to be uploaded soon.

Dick