One of the quietest severe storm seasons ever recorded, 2005 will forever be remembered by me as the year of the Green Sky and Rainbow. Storm chasing in a quiet season allows me time to work on capturing the rich colors and textures of the weather and stretching vistas over which it forms. I hope the pictures from this year show that storms are exquisite even when tornadoes aren't present.
You'll have to look at this photo carefully. At the bottom left and the bottom right are two features associated with this gust front called gustnadoes. They are often mistaken as tornadoes, and these were as well prompting tornado sirens to sound in Akron which is just to the left (outside the frame). They are in fact not at all tornadoes, and in fact form on the outflow of storms. Brief rotation under the rapidly expanding shelf cloud results in these "dust whirls". The real danger actually lies just behind the gustnadoes where straight line winds >70mph were clocked. I liked the dirt tracks leading off into the storm.
You'll have to look at this photo carefully. At the bottom left and the bottom right are two features associated with this gust front called gustnadoes. They are often mistaken as tornadoes, and these were as well prompting tornado sirens to sound in Akron which is just to the left (outside the frame). They are in fact not at all tornadoes, and in fact form on the outflow of storms. Brief rotation under the rapidly expanding shelf cloud results in these "dust whirls". The real danger actually lies just behind the gustnadoes where straight line winds >70mph were clocked. I liked the dirt tracks leading off into the storm.