July 11-14, 2026 Arizona Severe Storms

July 11-14, 2026 was our annual Great North Tornado Hunt tour. However, due to a sprawling ridge of high pressure which shut down northern plains chasing, we decided to take the tour to Arizona in search of severe monsoon thunderstorms. It did not disappoint!! We arrived early evening after a long days drive, only to find severe storms west of Tucson. We blasted out towards Kitt Peak as the sunset, just in time to catch the lightning show! Incredible cgs lit the sky for over an hour before weakening. On the 12th we encountered a cluster of severe storms near Sells, AZ that produced an amazing haboob! The wedge of blowing dirt was textbook! One of the best I’ve seen. On the 13th we needed to start our journey back to Denver, stopping for storms over Sedona, AZ. What a beautiful sight watching lightning striking the gorgeous red rock near town! We would have rather chased supercells and tornado in the northlands, but with the ridge in place it is always our motto to go where the weather takes us, regardless where that is! Enjoy the pics!

July 29 -August 8 Arizona Monsoon Storms

Each year we run a tour in the desert southwest from Tucson we call the Desert Thunder Tour. Its specific purpose is to photograph the incredible lightning that occurs during this period. The 2023 monsoons haven’t been very good thus far, however we were still able to capture many great lightning strikes in southeast Arizona and also near Sedona. Nothing prettier than the desert landscape filled with cactus and red rock foregrounds to set the stage for a beautiful lightning image! Please enjoy them!

July 29 – August 12 Desert Thunder Tours

Each year, in conjunction with our sister website, www.southwestphotographytours.com, we spend 2 weeks in Arizona conducting our popular Desert Thunder Tours. We keep these as small one van tours, with 6 guests. The Arizona monsoon season peaks in July and August, with southern Arizona receiving the brunt of the thunderstorm activity. We had a very successful monsoon season in 2017, with storms on 75% of the days! We travel anywhere we believe the most intense, and pretty, storms will occur. We spent time in southeast, southern and central Arizona, and even in southwest New Mexico. We photographed storms over Saguaro National Park, Kitt Peak, the desert floors, Sedona, Cathedral Rock, the Chiricahuas, the Superstition Mountains and many others. Some of the most spectacular lightning in the country occurs here each season! Below are many photos of the events we captured while on tour this season. We hope you enjoy the photos and we hope to see you with us on tour in the years ahead!

August Monsoon Storms

After our storm chasing tours are over, we head to Arizona to run our monsoon storm tours and workshops. You can find these at our www.southwestphotographytours.com website. Here are some of the incredible images we had this year, including a tornado near Wilcox, AZ! We get a lot of guests from our Silver Lining Tours family that come on our monsoon storm tours, which are called “Desert Thunder”. We’d love to have you! Check them out on our other website.