It is unusual for our area to see discrete thunderstorms — individual storms visible against otherwise clear skies — so we miss out on some thrilling sights. The anvil or thunderhead of a strong storm usually happens above a lower cloud layer in our region, hidden from those of us who appreciate such things. On July 20, 2022 a severe thunderstorm rolled right overhead. I’ve rarely, if ever, heard so many cracks of thunder so close by. I was indoors, did not see the mammoth bolts directly above my roof, and was actually getting concerned the house, or my tall flagpole, would be hit. I was close to being afraid of the lightning, and that’s very unusual! The storm passed, as storms do, and I took a peek through a window. To the west the sky was clearing as the clean edge of the thunderstorm moved east but then the thrill: mammatus clouds! Technically, mammatus are not rare phenomena, often hanging from the anvils of thunderstorms, but we rarely see them here for the reasons given above — we rarely see the anvils. The sky was full of them! I grabbed my iPhone (nearest camera) and hurried outside. Though I feared it would end quickly, the display went on til after dark. Here are a few views…
Right after the rain ended, as the storm was moving off, we remained under the anvil where a tremendous display of mammatus clouds was happening. Photo by James GuilfordMammatus clouds hanging beneath the anvil of a retreating thunderstorm, the edge of the anvil visible against blue sky. The clouds form due to extreme turbulence in cloud — discrete pockets of air sinking at high altitude. Photo by James Guilford.And then came sunset! The mammatus-filled sky lit up in sunset colors in a show that persisted through twilight. Photo by James Guilford.Wind vane and anemometer of my weather station silhouetted against a most dramatic sky. Photo by James Guilford.
An Autumn Meadowhawk (Sympetrum vicinum), AKA Yellow-legged Meadowhawk, observes its world from a dried aquatic plant leaf in the wetlands of the Alderfer-Chatfield Wildlife Sanctuary.
We’ve not been out much on nature hikes this year. We did, however, pay a brief visit to a local park Saturday, and spotted a few dragonflies. This is one of many Autumn Meadowhawks we observed that afternoon at the Medina County Park District’s Alderfer-Chatfield Wildlife Sanctuary. These red beauties are usually the last dragonfly seen each year with a flight season that begins in July and which can extend to mid-November.
Storm Arrival. A complex shelf cloud developed along the leading edge of a mesoscale convective system (MCS) as it rolled over the city of Medina, Ohio in the middle of the day. Torrential rains followed.
I was able to record the approach of a massive mesoscale convective system (MCS) with its shelf cloud early in the afternoon of August 25 — this panorama I assembled shows most of it. I posted a panning video I shot of the storm and it was discovered by a producer at Accuweather. The cable weather channel requested permission to use the “footage” on-air but I denied the request … I feared their use of my drone video, myself not yet a certified professional drone pilot, would violate FAA regulations. I was later told by a flight instructor that I could have granted permission, even sold the video to a willing buyer, since it was created for recreation and not on assignment or with the intent of commercial use. I still sigh thinking about that one. Mebbie next time!
By the way, I have a lot of experience with this type of weather phenomenon and was even checking radar as the storm approached so I knew when to land to avoid rain and strong winds.
One reason I purchased a drone aircraft was to be able to view sunrises, sunsets, and weather phenomena from home by rising above the trees that surround us. The experiments have been successful, this being the latest effort.
Shot of the night was of this magnificent anvil crawler that lit the clouds overhead as it sprawled across the sky. In the lower left-hand corner of this image is an interesting cloud feature — something invisible without the flash of the lightning discharge.
A line of thunderstorms was bearing down on our area the night of July 24 and it looked like it might be interesting — it has been a while since I’ve made any lightning pictures. The storm progressed slowly from Southeastern Michigan and Northwest Ohio and across Lake Erie finally beginning its arrival here around midnight. As the storm overran the area, I watched it for lightning potential. Ducking outside and looking up at one point, I was treated to a beautiful “anvil crawler” display nearly overhead!
I rushed to my office and quickly assembled my gear: Canon EOS 6D Mk. 2, wide-angle lens, and tripod. First to the northern side of the house. After some waiting and a couple of “teasers” the storm let loose a magnificent crawler — brilliant lightning crossing the cloud bottoms, branching off to the sides. Turns out, that was the shot of the night though I didn’t know it at the time since I was unable to preview my images. Light rain began to fall and with not enough shelter, I moved to the south side of the house.
Long streaks of lightning branch across the southern sky over Medina during a relatively quiet thunderstorm the night of July 24.
It took a while for the storm to progress southward enough for me to see the dwindling cloud-to-cloud lightning flashes but they eventually came. I spent maybe 90 minutes watching the storm, aiming the camera, waiting for the automatic trigger to capture the ephemeral brilliance. Thunder, this night, rolled across the dark countryside for many seconds after each flash before fading away — something I’ve not experienced in quite some time. It was lovely. My sheltered spot on the south side kept camera, lens, and photographer dry throughout, which isn’t always the case. Rain prevented me from aiming the camera as high as I’d have liked. Just a few drops on the camera lens, combined with a bright lightning flash, produces an unusable image.
Not a pretty picture, at 1:08 a.m. this powerful cloud-to-ground bolt hit only a mile or so away! Perhaps surprisingly, I head no sirens and have read no accounts of storm damage.
The storm petered out so, sometime around 1:45 a.m. I went back indoors, and reviewed the images via the camera’s display. Yes! Beautiful stuff! Editing the photos after sleeping for a few hours was the highlight of my Sunday morning.
In future I really need to find a sheltered place, or at least a place where I can park and shoot from my car at night, a spot that has an open view of the countryside and/or town. In the mean time, results from the Saturday night storm were worth the sleep deprivation.
The Shot of the Night was this magnificent anvil crawler that lit the clouds as it sprawled across the sky. The Medina County Gazette ran my photo on Page 2, crediting “resident photographer James Guilford”. I like my new title.
It has been a fairly quiet (visually) storm season for me this year but there has been some drama. Here are several shots, from two storms, that took place in July.
Views of the July 7th’s approaching storm: the most active portion was behind me producing low rumbles of distant thunder. Except for light, cooling gusts of wind and these beautiful clouds, nothing remarkable happened where I stood. Not even a drop of rain.
I love the sweep, the grand curves of these cloud formations! Shelf clouds and the like thrill and fascinate me and I’m so lucky to be able to seek them out.July 7 shelf cloud, seen from the ground, near Chippewa Lake, Ohio.July 7 shelf cloud viewed from the air via DJI Air 2S quadcopter drone.July 13 shelf cloud dropping rain, viewed from the air via DJI Air 2S quadcopter drone in Medina, Ohio.
Sunset June 30. Clouds parted enough that evening to allow a colorful end to the day. I used my recently-purchased quadcopter drone to rise above the treetops in order to see, enjoy, and photograph the night’s fine sunset. This is a two-panel panorama, created post-flight. I continue to be impressed by the DJI Air 2s camera system; its dynamic range is excellent, lens is reasonably sharp, and the drone is a surprisingly stable platform. It’s also a hoot flying this little aircraft! Bringing the drone in for a manual landing before dark, I was tickled by how it automatically switched on its landing light. The flying camera adds another dimension to my photography and, as I said, it’s a hoot!
Though high in July 19th’s sky, our waxing Gibbous Moon was decidedly orange. Smoke, high in the atmosphere from North American wildfires, tinted what should have been a bright white Moon in the colors of moonset. Ruddy or not, I love that we can see mountain peaks and crater edges peeking up from the darkness just left of the sunlight terminator line. A friend commented on the sunrise-illuminated mountain peaks, “Mons Pico at 8,000 feet and Mons Piton at 7,500 feet are two solitary mountain peaks sticking up out of the lava plain in the northeast corner of Mare Imbrium.“
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