Tag Archives | storms

July 3, 2026 Eastern Colorado Severe Storms and Aurora Borealis

July 3rd was the final day of the photo tour and as such, we had to be back in Denver that night. After a CME hit earth, I knew there would be a geomagnetic storm that night, but didn’t think it would reach G3, with a Kp of 7!! Thunderstorms formed just before sunset and slowly pushed east of the Denver metro. As darkness grew, you could see the beginning of the aurora peeking through the clouds. I drove well east of town towards Bennett/Strasburg to get away from the intense city lights. What happened next was magical! The storms intensified and became severe for hail and wind, but on the back side of them as skies cleared, pillars or red, green and purple peeked through the clouds and made for a surreal scene! I was able to get several shots of the aurora and the glow of lightning, as well as a couple shots of cgs too! What a wild way to end the week!!! Enjoy the pics!

 

August 2-8 Desert Thunder Tour Images!

Each year we conduct lightning tours in Arizona during monsoons. This year we were there the first week of August. Despite a far from favorable weather pattern nature provided some pretty storms with excellent lightning! We traveled over southeastern Arizona and occasionally into southwestern New Mexico on various days. However the majority of the time we spent in Cochise and Santa Cruz counties this year. Temperatures were extremely hot with daytime highs from 105-115. Moisture was on the marginal side with dewpoints in the upper 40s to mid 50s. However enough was available to generate some instability to produce these storms. Enjoy the pics!

June 6th White Sands, New Mexico Lightning

There wasn’t a lot of hope on June 6th, so we took the group to White Sands National Park in southern New Mexico for some general thunderstorm formation in hopes of catching some lightning over the dunes. Nature did not disappoint! We arrived to developing storms west of the park. A couple hours later, stormed were forming over the park as outflow from the western and southern storms moved into the area, lifting the air and generating storms, some severe! Nature is such an artist as several lightning strikes occurred over and near the park. A fun day and many of the guests had never been to White Sands. Needless to say, I bet they go back again! Enjoy the photos!

June 25th-27th, 2011 Storms

Here is a compilation of a few days worth of strong/severe storm photos. June 25th-27th weren’t spectacular by any means, but the period did give some pretty storm photography opportunities.

June 5th, 2003 New Mexico Gustnadofest

Not a great set up this day as storms formed north of an advancing cold front. These storms had embedded supercells in a line and they produced many photogenic gustnadoes. One such “spin up” actually had cloud base rotation and would be considered a weak tornado. Later, as the haboob formed, a large wall of red dirt was seen from many miles away.

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