08/09/09 August Electrical Storms

August lightning display near Princeton, IL

Wow, what an insane day for severe weather and intense thunderstorms thanks to the August summer-heat. It's hard to get tornadoes during August, but what you can get is some extreme wind events and incredible lightning displays here in the Midwest and yesterday was one of those days. This was all thanks to the well known "ring-of-fire" pattern that fires off convective complexes on the central plains heat dome's periphery. On Sunday, I debated on chasing either in northern Illinois and/or Iowa due to an enhanced damaging wind threat. However, I changed my mind once I analyzed outflow boundaries from several convective complexes pushing southeast toward central Illinois from eastern Iowa. These boundaries were heading into an area of extreme instability 4,500-5,000J/kg of CAPE analyzed by the RUC. By late afternoon a bow-echo was racing east across central Iowa into this area as well, but a warm-layer aloft (cap) was suppressing convection from forming all afternoon near the boundary. Nevertheless, thanks to an unstable-moist environment and ascent from the previous mentioned bow-echo the cap was "zipped" west-to-east along this boundary at sunset across central Illinois. This provided several local photo-ops. Yes, I missed some insane shelf clouds photographed in Iowa, but by chasing locally I have no regrets based on some of the images I was able to grab during the evening and overnight. I don't think I called it a night till about 1:00am! I grabbed many convective tower shots near sunset than switched over to lightning-mode for about 4-hours. Witnessed a few bolts from the "blue" as it seemed everything was electrically charged last night thanks to the extreme instability that was along this boundary. So all in all, I may have missed some incredible shelf clouds in Iowa, but I wasn't left empty-handed by any means. I've included many photos below from yesterday as it was incredibly hard to choose my favorites. Note: I'd highly recommend enlarging the lightning photos while viewing to get the most dramatic effect...

Amazing shot here as this tower accelerates vertically allowing for the cirrus above to be forced
upward giving you that levitation-look

Yet another...just goes to show you when the cap breaks the
vertical momentum of updrafts is quite strong (Click to enlarge...)

This tower initiates and later becomes a very healthy thunderstorm

As the sun sets here it's incredible what Mother Nature can produce in a simple photograph

Another awesome updraft shot...
having the right lens makes all the difference

Turkey towers along OFB struggling to overcome the cap initially

Another "levitating cirrus" above this updraft
with strong vertical momentum

Close-up of a "Turkey tower"

Yet another updraft shot...

First branching stroke of the evening...a night where everything

seemed like it had an electrical charge

The start of several storm structure/lightning shots

Thunderstorm that exhibited some rotation near Princeton, IL
showing off its lightning display

Dual positive strokes???

If you're into photographing lightning last night was your night...

Simply beautiful and dangerous at the same time

Not as long as an exposure here, but if this was daylight that would be a "bolt-from-the-blue" above or in this case a "bolt-from-the-stars"

Branching ground stroke originating from this storms updraft

I'm sure people were saying "Oh, that's heat lightning" last night...umm NO!!!...as their is no such thing as heat lightning

Just an insane lightning display to my east

Talk about a great night for
lightning thunderstorm structure shots I'd say
 

A short YouTube time-lapse (above)