https://tonylaubach.net/weather-journals/ This is exciting!  In conjunction with a social media series I am putting together for September, I finally created a space here on my site to include some early-era (pre-chase) weather journals, which cover many events in the mid/late 90s prior to my chase documentation.  This includes a few Ohio-based weather events I experienced and documented in some form, plus my high-school era lightning photography when I moved to Colorado in 1998.  For years, most of this stuff has been scattered about on various pieces of hardware in various forms of archives, many scans of old photos with no…

The last two weeks have provided plenty in the eye-candy department, from awesome lightning to great structure to awesome sunsets, and while yesterday’s chase provided plenty of a lot of that, what it did differently this time was actually be severe.  Yes, I have seen severe storms scattered over the last couple weeks, but its been rare to actually experience one.  Yesterday will wrap up this lengthy stint with a memorable bow echo intercept along I-80 as I rode out 60-70mph winds in Maxwell after being overtaken by a pretty dramatic looking shelf cloud. Wrapped up in North Platte shooting…

To say the cameras got a workout yesterday would be an understatement.  I woke up in North Platte after having seen my target shift from northwest Kansas the morning before, to ‘perhaps around North Platte’ the night before, to “oh crap, I’m going all the way to Wyoming, aren’t I’.  Big shift in how I panned this day, but I pivoted, headed west, and was treated to some fantastic daytime lightning which the Bolt Hunter captured very well (that thing has completely changed my lightning chasing). After some great lighting near Kimball and a quick core check, I got onto…

I’m not even kidding… I ran into fellow chaser and friend, Vince while watching a struggling storm north of Sutherland, Nebraska yesterday… we chatted for the better part of an hour while watching this nearly stationary storm struggle, go through an impressive LP phase, then fizzle over our heads.  Toward the end of its life as we were chatting away, we heard a small plunk on the ground next to my vehicle and Eagle-Eyed Vince spotted the source, a single, solitaire piece of hail, which when it fell, was about the size of a penny.  But by the time all-thumbs…

Another day, another setup.  This one will take me back up into western Nebraska later this afternoon, day 1 of what will probably be a three-spot to kick off the first half of this final week of August, a month that has been very busy.  Once all is said and done and we flip the calendar to the first day of METEOROLOGICAL FALL (omg, please don’t drag summer out), I will have to look back on prior Augusts to see where this sits in comparison to priors.  This month has felt very reminiscent of early career Augusts here in Colorado…

Should be a quiet-ish day locally for me, some afternoon storms will likely pop off the higher terrain, but should be less intense and numerous than yesterday.  That said, barring something hyper-local, today won’t involve a lot of effort.  Tomorrow is a maybe up across the western half of Nebraska, so we’ll see how that shakes out.  Either way, it’s something I can wait til tomorrow morning to decide.  It would get me out in the field, which sets up for the one day I am watching with intent, that would be Tuesday.  Above is the hardly-means-anything graphic, but gives…