Top Storm Photos of 2009

Even though there might be a small chance for severe weather in the next week or two, I thought I'd post my favorite storm photos of 2009. I was lucky enough to capture some decent shots in 2009, especially tornadoes. And despite the crappy year that a lot of chasers have had, we've had probably our best year yet...intercepting tornadoes in every month from March until July. Here is a link to last year's top photos.

A 'firenado' back on March 6th, almost as good as the real thing up close:



April 26th, near Roll/Crawford, OK:



May 6th, 2009 in Linn County, KS a brilliant sunlit wall cloud and rainbow beneath a low-topped supercell...one that didn't even make it into the reports, but is forever etched into my mind:



May 30th, Clinton Lake Dam, KS, Lightning shot with the moon setting underneath the updraft :



June 15th, 2009 near Kinsley, KS:



June 17th, amazing structure just west of Grand Island, Nebraska (wish I were just about 2 miles further east) :



June 17th, the Aurora, Nebraska tornado as it begins to cross back north of the highway...a few miles west of Aurora:



June 20th, Princeton Kansas 'mothership' supercell which produced several, weak, brief tornadoes, but the structure stole the show:

Storm Chasers Show

Here is a preview:




Here's a fact you probably didn't know about Reed: He paid for his new vehicle out of his own pocket!

Brandon Ivey and Matt Hughes will be on the show this year too, who are a couple of chaser friends near the Wichita, Kansas area. Brandon is a stand-up, laid-back guy who I always give hell to about how close he seems to get to tornadoes after dark (via radar). Matt is also a great guy and together, make solid forecasts on tricky days and seem to always bag the good stuff.

Despite the crappy year for most(not for us!), there will be some unbelievable footage on the show. Reed and crew nailed every single major day this year (April 26, April 29, May 13th, June 5, June 15th, June 17th) and took direct hits from tornadoes on 3 of those days...2 of those...they were the first ever to scan the vertical wind shear inside of a tornado. Data collected from all of these intercepts, including the radar data, will eventually help save lives in the future from tornadoes.

In other news, I have just found out via printing at whcc.com that my monitor is way off on calibration. So if your monitor is calibrated correctly, my images probably seem very dark. To fix this problem, I'm calibrating it today with a ridiculously expensive program, so that I can print some photos in the future.