Friday, July 10, 2009

Last night's lightning chase log....

Last night around 10 pm I was watching an area of showers and thunderstorms moving into Polk County...They were not as strong as I would have liked to have seen them...Well Told Tammy we would head out then we would go just wait for the storms to slide off to the South and get some lightning pictures..I told her I would show her a few tricks in getting lightning with a digital camera...10:45 I called them back told her to forget,did say there may be more moving into the area...I told her I was going to take a nap,since I still have not been to bed since Tuesday night...Well around the midnight hr I get a call from Tammy saying storms were getting closer and she could see lightning...So out of bed I fly..Check the radar sure enough storms moving in..Picked Tammy about around 12:30...We headed down HWY bloody 8 sat up over around the Almena area..Light show was not bad at all..Problem with this was I was trying to explain to her how to use her camera,and the settings for lightning..The pictures I did take with mine camera just weren't the best...We let the storm move over us and then was following it Eastwards staying out of the rain as best we could..To make a long story short..We needed up in Rusk County..Back home around 5 AM....I think Mother nature does not want me to take pictures of lightning any more, as she was trying to take me out of this world a few times last night...Yeah a few close calls for damn sure..Tammy had the right idea as the first bolt almost got us..She sat in the truck and ran the remote through the window...That worked for her,but the way the truck was sitting it would have not worked for me...So I had to be outside...Side note the thunderstorms were not strong.If one was looking at radar and really not sure what they were looking at they would have thought the storms were strong...They weren't even close..Just some mod to some heavy rain...Mainly East of Almena Through Cameron over to South of Bruce..We did not see any hail in Barron County nor did we really get into strong winds...The highest wind gust we recorded was 20 MPH this data came right from the field,Radar image came off my laptop using Storm Lab 4..Did get stronger over in Rusk County did get some pea size hail South of Bruce...Will have the total storm accumulated precipitation radar grab up in a few....I hope Tammy's picture came out,mine didn't I had the wrong settings...Next lightning chase will be better as I won't have to teach her the dos and don'ts..