Jason Persoff's Severe Weather Photography- powered by SmugMug

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.

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stormdoctor > This was an example of an outflow-dominant storm (far background and right) enhancing lift of an updraft (foreground, left). This eventually caused the updraft to intensify before the storm collapsed and became outflow dominant for good.

stormdoctor > What captured my attention at this point was the intense turquoise green sky in the far background and to the right. While the "greeness" of the sky is often associated with hail (and this most certainly was), the exact cause of the gorgeous green hue is not well delineated. The theory I like the most is that the high cloud tops reflect sunshine down ultimately with hail/rain/etc resulting in filtering of the sunshine of all colors save this gorgeous green. Large hail was reported with this storm at that time.

stormdoctor > 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.

stormdoctor > I just liked the visual sensation of this photo with the shelf clouds taking on a very tangible feel.

stormdoctor > Brisk outflow undercuts a back-shearing anvil kicking up dirt and debris in its wake. Near Akron, CO.

stormdoctor > Brisk outflow undercuts a back-shearing anvil kicking up dirt and debris in its wake. Near Akron, CO.

stormdoctor > This storm, northeast of Lamar, CO, is in fact inflow-dominant at the time of this photo (though it looks like a shelf cloud, the storm was transitioning into a more inflow dominant phase for a short period). Note the wheat blowing toward the storm. Very beautiful.

stormdoctor > Note the "stack of plates" appearance to the storm at this point. These three semi-circular features appear to be three separate updrafts with midlevel rotation. This storm did not produce any tornadoes, but did produce hurricane-force winds and hail. I just loved this shot and being there was breathtaking.

stormdoctor > Nothing too spectacular, but a nice end to a nice day :). Shot was taken looking north at Lamar, CO.

Brisk outflow undercuts a back-shearing anvil kicking up dirt and debris in its wake. Near Akron, CO.

> Brisk outflow undercuts a back-shearing anvil kicking up dirt and debris in its wake. Near Akron, CO.

Brisk outflow undercuts a back-shearing anvil kicking up dirt and debris in its wake. Near Akron, CO.

Camera: Canon (Canon Eos Digital Rebel) |

More details: exif |

Original size: 2048px x 3072px |

Current: 200px x 300px |

Other sizes: Small · M · L · O |

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Keywords: storm shelf

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