Weather in Eastern Colorado

One of the little things I would look forward to were weather events.  I really want to photograph a tornado before I die.  I had several promising storms pass through but nothing that produced a funnel cloud that reached the ground.  The only contact I had with the outside world was a radio with fuzzy reception that ironically got worse when I needed it the most.  Those times were when they issued severe weather bulletins.  I would here the emergency broadcast tone interrupt the classic rock station (it was the one that came in the clearest) and I would stop what I was doing and stand by the radio.  If the weather warning was good and dire I would go grab my yellow parka and head out about a mile into the highest point in the middle of a hill south of the property.  In hindsight this was not the best thinking I have had...for a multitude of reasons.  A mile is a long ways, especially through knee to waist high grass and brush.  Hail and lightening were two of my most realistic concerns but the off chance of a tornado forming on top of me would have been catastrophic.

Here are some of the better pictures that show some of what I saw.

Watching a textbook supercell form

I felt certain this wall cloud behind the barn was going to finish dropping.   No such luck.  Supercells are characterized by the the continuously rotating updraft.  They are most common in the Great Plains.

My foolish fearless storm tracking dog

Rainbow after my trip into Burlington and my first real experience with Colorado severe weather

 Sometimes the storm clouds would be freakishly low to the ground

These anvil clouds were known to reach as high as 75,000 feet into the atmosphere (although height of 20,000 ft are more common)  Impressive to behold.

Videos to follow in later posts.