Thursday, August 16, 2012

Feel The Fury of the Storm!


In August, I have plenty to film from my home.  Our monsoon is still very active.  In a special two part series about monsoon today and tomorrow, you'll get to see what happens here in the desert:) and why this time of year is just amazing.
All of these shots today were taken from around El Presidio gardens.  It was a good thing because this guy has zero dinero right now to go on birding/wildlife trips.  This may surprise some but I have a lot more exploration to do around Arizona AND especially Southern Arizona. 
I'm still working on my lightning shots but I'm pretty happy with these.  They seem to turn out better at night.
I love this shot of El Presidio from above.  It's raining in the dark with lovely hues of blues and pinks flashing all around the property.
Some people, like myself, actually will enjoy the lighting while others don't even realize what's going on outside.  Their loss.  It's a pretty spectacular show.  The best part?  Our storms are so powerful here sometimes they create massive dust storms known as "haboobs" that push into the city known as Phoenix.  Here in Tucson, we think that is okay;)
Of course, I have to make sure the lightning is just far enough off before actually walking around the property to snap shots.  Too many people get struck in the desert and die.  Some of you may even smile at the idea and I understand. I think everyone laughs at the idea until someone is hit and then it goes into, "That sucks!"  But it happens.  And yes, a golfer last year lifted his pole into the air and bit the dust when a random bolt hit him out of nowhere.  And so the saying goes, "At least he died loving what he was doing."  I'm not so sure his family would agree with that statement today.
In several of the pics, you'll see lightning flash inside of what we term "storm cells".  These "cells" can grow or shrink in isolated pockets. And sometimes they can join together and create one massive cell.  That is explosive and dangerous at times.  The ones everyone tries to avoid are the "microbursts".  That is just a free fall of all the rain down on one spot.  It can cause a roof to cave in or pull trees out of the ground.  Dangerous stuff.
These storms cannot really be predicted as they just happen when they happen.  Individual cells can and do move as they will throughout the night sky.  But on this particular night, the storms were "training" over Tucson.  This means that it would continue to rain over the same areas and storms would continue to rain without sunshine for a power up.
As a special post, a first for Las Aventuras on lightning, I put together a video showing off nature's fireworks here from midtown Tucson. It was picked up by an internet weather station to be shown at a later date.  You'll be able to see it now:) Until next tomorrow....

32 comments:

  1. Excellent lightening. Not something i see very often.

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  2. Fantastic, you've taken the storm at the right place and the right weather, brilliant photography.

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  3. I love these photos, not like anything you did before. But you haven't taught me how to take the lightning shots! I can very well see these strikes at my 5th floor window facing west, when the rains are not so heavy yet, and i actually enjoy them like you. I hope you are in a shade when you do that because the tripod might be a magnet to lightning too!

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    1. Oh Andrea....so sorry:) So I found that trying to capture them with pics is too difficult. So I use the movie part on my camera and film the sky during an active lightning storm. Then I play the movie bit on the computer slowly and "snapshot" the electrical burst. I convert the pic to a jpeg, put my initials on it so that websites don't steal the shot and illegally steal my images:) You do need a Microsoft Movie function for this and you can also make homemade videos like I did below:)

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  4. It is interesting that most of the monsoonal moisture which creates storms in and around the deserts surrounding not only Tucson but also other Arizona cities happens mostly at night. This of course is not always the rule in every case but very common none the less.

    I can almost smell the Creosote Brush.

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  5. Cool shots of the lightning. Your El Presidio looks pretty lit up at night. I love watching storms from a safe place. My hubby is addicted to watching the weather and storms. Great post and I enjoyed your photos.

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  6. Lovely photos Chris and brilliant video. You certainly seem to get some incredibly intensive storms where you are. I love thunderstorms and watching the lightning over here but nothing like the experience you get - nature at its most awesome!

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  7. Amazing photos and video! Fantastic job.

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  8. Patrzeć i podziwiać taką burzę mogłabym, ale tylko będą w domu. Pozdrawiam.
    Look and admire such a storm could, but just be at home. Yours.

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  9. Chris, Your lighting show is amazing, its no wonder the news channel wants to air it.
    Fantastic captures of the hard to photograph lighting. You must have the patience of a saint.

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  10. wow Chris...GORGEOUS night shots!!! your lightning pictures are amazing!! such beautiful skies...

    and your monsoon video IS magical!!

    (here in florida we have a lot of lightning strikes...to people, trees, houses, even cows in fields...many resulting in fatalities.)

    BE SAFE!!!!!!!!!!!!! =)

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  11. We had a storm like that here a month ago. The lightening is always beautiful, though I still get a little "scared" as I did as a child. Sort of fear of the unknown, or can I get struck, or am I safe!

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  12. oh my....wonderful!
    and I loved the music you chose
    so much talent from Wisc
    :)

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  13. Cool photos, Chris. But the shot of El Presidio is the best.

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  14. Great shots of lighting, I love watching it. We don't get electrical storms here that often so great to see yours.

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  15. Your "Monsoon Magic" is quite something!

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  16. the video is neat! the stills are spectacular!

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  17. I think you can divide the world into two groups of people when it comes to storms: those that go inside when they hit, and those who go outside to watch it, or in your case, photograph it! Great shots :)

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  18. Chris! What a wonderful job you did on your video. I think my favorite shot from your post was the shot of El Presidio lit up in the rain. I need to get my sense of adventure back and get out during a storm...safely, of course.

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  19. Love the lightening shots! You make a great point about people missing out on such a dramatic and beautiful show. I see that all the time, there is amazing weather going on outside and nobody else seems to care. I talk about it and get a "I didn't notice" sort of response.

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  20. Great storm imagery - used to see that 3+ times every week when the monsoon season was reliable in Abq. And I can smell those warm downpours in your pics, as well as the heavy, humid morning air scented with creosote bush:-)

    I like it...Tucson gets it's desert washed off, and all the dust gets dumped on Phoenix! They need to be humbled, don't they? :-)))

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    1. Oh yes:) But some of them can be quite nice:)

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  21. Beautiful video, Chris... I especially love that piano music. The piano is one of my favorite instruments. Gorgeous!

    Lightning is so fascinating to watch... You got some great photos of it...

    When do you go back to work?
    Betsy

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    1. Hi Betsy:) I have returned! Oh dread:) We are on week 2 now. I do like working but I really have to manage my time better:) Hope you are enjoying your Thursday. Me:)

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  22. Holy Cow!!! Chris!! This is fantastic, beautiful, surreal!! I love it, every bit of it. I looked at all of the shots several times even with the goofy trouble I am having viewing pictures in blogger. I'm gonna pull out may IPad and view it again. Love the music too. I love storms and lightning. What a treat!

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    1. Thank you so much. I don't know what's going on with that blogger thing. It used to make them all move in a row nice and clean. And it does it on our Ipad just not on the computer. On my recent posts that I just wrote it does it again, but these were prepared 3 weeks ago and it was doing it then so I'm not sure if it has to do with that uploading during that time period. Glad you liked the shots. The experience behind the photography is always the most rewarding....the smells and colors of that night were wonderful. When I feel stressed, all I have to do is take out my camera and I forget everything around me. Have a good night:)

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  23. Amazing, I love the blue tinge.

    Still a subject that I must work on capturing better shots of.

    Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

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  24. Beautiful lightening shots. We get a lot of lightening here in NC too (I think only second in strikes to Florida) and it does make for a spectacular show.

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  25. Hello Chris,
    Wonderful these shots!! Amazing how you've get this lightning.
    Your second shot is fantastic to, what a sky...!!

    Greetings, Marco

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