08/24/10 Summer Sunsets

Frontal passage (FROPA) providing a beautiful
sunset looking west toward Kewanee, IL
with my very own silhouette (foreground)

Tuesday night, provided a beautiful late-summer sunset in the western horizon. The weather has been rather tame over the last few weeks here in Kewanee, IL so I decided to pull out the Canon T1i DSLR once again the other night and do some photography-work. Here are a few photos from Tuesday night and also over the past few weeks of a couple sunsets that caught my eye in this rather quiet weather pattern below:

My favorite shot of the evening...

Gorgeous late-summer/early fall sunset...

A local farmhouse here and some alto-cumulus at sunset

Our backyard soybean field full of magnificent colors

I achieved this photo by moving my arms just a little bit here
which gave this "ghostly silhouette" of myself
(Heck, kind of looks spiritual don't it?)

Hometown water tower (left) as the
sun dips below the horizon

Amazing post-frontal alto-cumulus cloud deck

Cirrus clouds providing a colorful sunset on August 16th...

Sun rays near sunset...(August 14th)

Well that's about all for now I may update with a future post including photos from this summer in the coming weeks. I'm planning on posting fall photos once again this year in the next couple months as pretty much the chasing season has come to an end. I'll still hold some hope for a late-fall chase and if that does not come to fruition well than it's time to get ready for the cold season. In other words, prepare for next spring and dream of monster supercells when it's -20°F outside. Got to love the good ole' Midwest!

08/14/10 Midnight Shelf Cloud

Picturesque shelf cloud rollin' into Kewanee, IL

Last evening, I was at work in Peoria, IL so I missed out on the evening squall line that progressed through west-central Illinois. With that being said however, another MCS formed in eastern Iowa during the late-evening and by midnight crossed the Mississippi River into west-central Illinois. Since I was actually up (for once) at that late hour I pulled out the DSLR camera for some lightning photography expecting some decent CG's (cloud-to-ground lighting strikes). I didn't get many of those however since the MCS lost control of its cold pool upon arrival. That was kind of a bummer, but shortly after midnight the gust front blew-in providing a beautiful shelf cloud illuminated by Kewanee, IL's light pollution (city lights). I really wasn't expecting anything remotely picturesque as this shelf cloud ended up being. For a decaying MCS, I was rather pleased! My only complaint on the night ended up being that I didn't get a chance to set-up at some locations I've came across for good (after dark) severe weather photography. Oh well, I was sure happy with the beautiful skyline Mother Nature had to offer at around midnight last night though. I've added a few photos of the midnight shelf cloud below:

Shelf cloud/gust front illuminated by intracloud lightning

Closer-view with the shelf cloud directly over Galva, IL

I would have had much better results if
this shelf cloud wasn't in such a hurry...

City lights bouncing off the shelf cloud...

As you probably already know I haven't had a lot of free time to actually chase/post in the past few weeks unfortunately, but of course I've kept an eye on the weather as usual. Minnesota, has been the "surprise" this year with lots of tornadoes especially over the past few weeks. Looking back at this past spring/summer I've seen some great supercells thus far...but it has been tough to get some tornado magic for this storm chaser. It's also hard when you can't chase 24/7 as well. If only we all could right?!