north of Peoria, IL in this wide-angle shot...
Last weekend, a few spring thunderstorms passed to the north of Peoria, IL during the late evening hours. Unfortunately, the storms were moving fairly quick off to the northeast and I had limited time to photograph them as I was stuck at work during the evening. Once off work though I spent about a good 40-minutes trying to grab a couple shots or at least one decent CG (cloud-to-ground) shot. I didn't get really any good opportunities as most of these thunderstorms were just a little too far north and didn't have many good bolts to them. This particular evening did allow me to get back into the swing of things however in terms of lightning photography. I did plan to chase this week April (15-17th), but I was not eagerly thrilled with this early-season chase setup despite the strong storm system. With that being said, I have been suffering from a great deal of information overload in the last week due to the immense amount of model-runs I looked at during the event just in case I ventured out. I almost drove to Kansas on Tuesday only to decided to stay put since my gut told me it would be a waste of time. Wednesday, I held on to hope that the warm front would park itself in central Illinois and I'd be able to chase, but that front pushed way south into southern Illinois so I didn't bother to venture out. It turned out I really didn't miss much so it ended up being the right decision(s). I'll save my time and money for the "big days". Anyhow, I've added just a couple photos of a disappointing night in terms of lightning photography from last weekend below:
the sky from time to time...
That's all for now. The long-term weather pattern doesn't looks that promising for severe weather over the next week or so in our area at least. The southern Great Plains and Deep South may have some decent severe weather this upcoming week though. We'll see what happens. My best guess is that we may be looking at more promising severe weather in May and June rather then April since winter has been tough to get rid of this spring especially across the Midwest. Once we get some good storms to chase (hopefully soon) I'll update again...
