10May

Chasecation 2013, Tempest Tours

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10 day tour with Tempest Tours in early May 2013 – Part 3 “The Chase Days”

When we woke up on our 7th day (May 7th), we finally had some storms to chase! I don’t really remember the setup of these days but we started chsasing in Kansas and found some really nice storm features of these high-based storms. In the end of the week we turned back down to Texas but found nothing really impressive.

updraft — Beautiful structure of this really flat, high-base updraft.

storm — A really cool U-shape of this storm base. I like how the right part of the storm is so well defined. The inflow winds were really strong on this storm, blowing tumble-weed over the fields.

rotating updraft — I am not really sure if it is the bad lighting that makes this rotating updraft so smooth or if it really had this perfect rounded shape.

storm chaser — The storm on May 8th was very similar to the one the day before. It was never close to be tornadic but was quite beautiful.

smooth base — I really love these smooth based storms. It really looks like something from another world.

tempest tours chase van — Our van in front of the storm

black white — This is a color photo but the colors of this field were almost black and white. Quite beautiful.

lightning — Our tour guide Brian Morganti is passionate about photographing lightning and with my new tripod that I bought during this tour I managed to catch a few.

impressive storm structure — Impressive structure!

funnel — A funnel cloud very briefly appeared from a storm, no longer than 10 seconds. It did not appear from the wall cloud and our tour guide wasn’t too impressed but it was the closest we got to a tornado on this tour.

structure — This storm looked much more impressive than can be seen on my photos. I was quite disappointed when I looked at them afterwards. The structure was a amazing with a “highway of clouds” coming in from our left, taking a full turn around the base.

swordfish cloud — Swordfish cloud!

Lightning bolt — I started to get better at capturing lightning during our second night. This photo (I have published it before) was heavily cropped.

Double lightning — Another good lightning shot (also published before).

mammatus clouds — Mammatus clouds in Texas.

light — The creates light shadows behind a storm cloud.

inflow bands — Chasing in central Texas with bad road networks and trees here and there. This storm had impressive inflow bands but not much else.

texas storm chasing — This is a problem with chasing in these parts. There could be a tornado under the storm but you could hardly tell because you can’t get there and there are hills and trees obstructing your view.

fredericksburg — Our plan was to stay in Fredericksburg over the night but the tornado warned storm was coming our way. We had to head out ouside of the town and let the storm pass. A few of us got out of the van to feel some of the powerful rain and winds.

dust storm — On our last day we chased a really fast (50 mph) storm in Texas that produced a massive dust front. It was quite intense and the only reason we could keep up with it was that it was going parallell to the highway.

rotating cloud — I don’t really know what this is but it was rotating (slowly). Looks really cool though.

chase crew — The chase crew of this tour.

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