Vaulted Ceiling

Massive supercell over the north half of Pampa, Texas in May, 2002. This storm was over 45kft tall (~8 miles tall) and persisted for hours. This photo clearly shows the "vault" of the storm where softball size hail fell decimating a large amount of county; the vault is located above the lightning strike and tends to be one of the more visually stunning parts of the storm (but rarely is photographable secondary to the possibility of large hail--this strike provided a unique view--one I've never seen before). As you can see by the rounded leading edge, this massive storm was violently rotating. Below the lightning strike is the midlevel inflow jet into the updraft of this tornadic cell. Shutter speed was 6 seconds with f/3.5.

Vaulted Ceiling

Massive supercell over the north half of Pampa, Texas in May, 2002. This storm was over 45kft tall (~8 miles tall) and persisted for hours. This photo clearly shows the "vault" of the storm where softball size hail fell decimating a large amount of county; the vault is located above the lightning strike and tends to be one of the more visually stunning parts of the storm (but rarely is photographable secondary to the possibility of large hail--this strike provided a unique view--one I've never seen before). As you can see by the rounded leading edge, this massive storm was violently rotating. Below the lightning strike is the midlevel inflow jet into the updraft of this tornadic cell. Shutter speed was 6 seconds with f/3.5.