Chase Logs 2007
Chasing by Air and Land: First Lightning Photo of '07
May 27, 2007
12:00pm-9:00pm
Eastern US
It is always an adventure taking an airplane trip across the US; you never know what weather phenomenon you will run into. Today's flight was the result of a scholarship I won from NOAA (the Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship), in which I got to fly to Washington D.C. for a week of seminars and meeting NOAA personnel. My flight left MSP at 10:30am, and I busted out the camera to take some photos of the clouds. After shooting a few frames, I decided to take a nap. Before I knew it we were over Ohio, and I cracked open the window shade to see the weather below. I was shocked to see clusters of developing storm cells exploding below. I eagerly dug my camera out of the depths of my backpack and began another photo spree. For the next twenty minutes I fired away as we crossed the leading edge of the system and landed at Reagan National Airport in D.C. Some of the storms exhibited what I can only describe as pileus caps high above them (see second photo from the right on the first row).
The weather in D.C. was hot and humid, with temps near 90 and the dewpoint in the upper 60's. After traveling to Silver Spring, just north of D.C. and getting settled in my hotel room by around 3pm EDT, I set up the laptop to begin looking for severe weather. Sure enough, the line of storms that I flew over was gathering strength and bearing down on the D.C. area. Every so slowly they churned towards the metro area; by 6:00pm the skies over Silver Spring began to darken as cirrostratus from the storm enveloped the sky. Thunder broke the calm of the day within 15 minutes, and by 6:30pm the cell was directly overhead, pounding the windows of my room with torrents of rain. I still managed to set up my PowerShot A630 camera for lightning photography, using a shutter speed of 1/5 of a second and an aperture of f/8. I held down the shutter button and prayed. About 600 photos, and two memory card formats later, my prayers were answered. A strong C-C bolt darted across the screen--I had the first lightning photo of 2007. Two weaker bolts, including a C-G bolt, would follow before the storm weakened and moved off towards Baltimore. Below are photos of the storm moving into Silver Spring, and the two C-C bolts from the night.
