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Chase Photos Lightning - Tornado Tornado Gallery Home |
Fremont Nebraska July 1998 Most of the time to get any good shots of a storm at all we must chase after a storm. However, sometimes we get lucky and the storm comes to us. The night that these images were taken started out as a calm July evening. My partner, Cindy, and I decided to take a bicycle ride around the town, since no obvious chasing opportunities presented themselves. Upon getting about a mile from our residence, we noticed large cumulus clouds rapidly developing about 5-10 miles north of our position and decided to return home to pick up our equipment. We knew we didn't have to go far, so we took up position near the Highway 275 and 30 intersection just east of Fremont. This storm was part of a line of storms that formed in a thin band from Western Nebraska to Eastern Nebraska and produced very heavy rains and vivid lightning. We filmed many brilliant lightning strokes, too many to put on this site. The vivid lightning also became a good thing for us as well. Since it was constant, it backlit a developing wal cloud. We observed the wall cloud for some 15 minutes, the storm was moving slowly east-southeast, before the lightning revealed a developing funnel and eventually brief tornado. Now a note from me to you. It is dangerous enough to chase storms during the day as it is. Therefore, I highly discourage anyone from chasing at night. Not only is it crucial for you to have a level of experience in chasing storms, but the conditions have to be just right for you to chase at night with some degree of safety and on this night they were. |