Chase Logs 2007
Serenity in the Storm: Sunset Thunderhead
July 7, 2007
8:00pm-11:30pm
Tower, MN
It seems like wherever I go, Mother Nature has a way of raising my hopes of a thunderstorm, only to drop them like a lead weight. Even when I'm on vacation. The annual fishing trip to Canada was scaled back this year to a smaller lake in Minnesota, Lake Vermillion. I call it the civilized version of Lake of the Woods. You can't find an uninhabited bay up here, where in Canada, I sometimes go days without seeing another boat. But the landscape is beautiful. Anyway, back to the weather. The forecast for today had called for a slight chance of severe weather, but knowing my luck with storms this season, I brushed it aside. After an afternoon of fishing which featured me losing my best lure to a #@!* northern pike, I settled into the evening with a heavy heart. But as the last light of the sun filtered through the hazy sky, my dad noticed a small glint of orange to the north. Below are some sunset photos from that evening. . .
I strolled outside and, yes, it was a thunderhead!! Hope renewed, I raced back inside, grabbed the DSLR and camcorder and set up just outside the cabin. I had an unobstructed view to the north over a long inlet of Lake Vermillion called Pike Bay. After a few minutes of taking time-lapse photos of the thunderhead, a bright flash of lightning arced under the storm.
I called my mom back home in Anoka and inquired about this beautiful monster straddling the northern sky. After looking at the DLH radar, she remarked that there was no storm near me. The closest storm was near Roseau, over 150 miles away. Dang. That would explain the lack of lightning. The storm was not severe, but appeared to be heading my way. Another 20-30 minutes of photo shooting passed before I came to the conclusion that the storm was too far away. I moved down to the dock shortly before 10:30pm and shot a few more photos of the cell and another system that was developing to the NW. By now, it was so dark that even when using my wide angle lens I had to use a shutter speed of over one minute, combined with an ISO speed of 250, to capture any image of the storm (the stars were showing up better in the photos than the storms). Despite a light wind off the lake, the mosquito hoards became unbearable, and I pulled back at 11:15pm. The storm passed over 75 miles to the north.
