Shooting lightning, as I’ve mentioned only about a bajillion times in the past, is my favorite aspect of storm chasing.  For me, this was REALLY where I got my start as my first couple summers in Colorado gave me many opportunities to capture lightning as I was still in the infancy of my severe weather career.  Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, all my shooting was done on film cameras, namely a Canon AE-1.  I don’t know exactly when digital SLRs came into the public grasp, but it would be many years before I would get my hands…

The heat of July continues, the doldrums, as we like to call them, and aside from the lightning/hail venture on the first day of the month, there has been ZERO to chase, and I’m not all too upset by it.  The time off has been nice, and I can gradually feel the itch starting to return, but it doesn’t look as if Ma-Nature’s itch to get me out is on the same level.  So… I figured I would look back on the first half of the year and offer up my awards to this point.  I will include the July…

July is my slowest warm-weather chasing month of the entire year… it’s usually my annual intermission; middle of the year, comes in fresh after a busy chasing season, and often requires little mileage investment for anything i do motivate myself to chase.  By the time I hit the first week of July, I am pretty wiped after the main brunt of the chasing season, which I am usually all-in from March through June, so after 4 months and tens of thousands of miles, I am happy and content to pack it in, catch my breath, remember what real life is…

So one of pet projects as part of the new website was to have a Chase Outlook widget, similar to a version I had on my much earlier sites were I updated a single button to show my chase status; in the now era, I created a version that looked at the days ahead and gave the outlook for those days in a similar color palette to what I had for that single button.  For most of the season, it functioned perfectly as I created it, but I wanted to add some more detail to it with percentages, as the…

It’s been the ONE thing missing; a good chance to shoot lightning… and holy shit did that came in spades tonight!  It’s 4:23am right now, I’m probably gonna crash hard here shortly, but OMG did I just have a night!!!  How many times in my career have I left the house with the simple intention to try and get a few lightning photos, then by the time I get home, the world blew up!  Oh I cannot WAIT to write up this chase log.  I was in PJs at home, had a late pizza dinner, and suddenly a few storms…

Sitting at home this afternoon waiting to finish up a work project means that barring some pop up storm that results in me trying to steal a lightning photo, my regular season is done.  As I always have, I divide the year into four parts, similar to Football… OFF-SEASON (DEC 1-FEB 29) May get some spot-chasing in, but very rare I get out during this time. PRE-SEASON (MAR 1 – MAR 31) Dress-rehearsal, often a busy month, but it always feels like a warm-up despite some major events that sneak in. REGULAR SEASON (APR 1 – JUN 30) This is…