Update July 1, 2009: FWIW if you didn't already know, now is a good time to watch for volcanic sunsets or sunrises. See http://www.spaceweather.com for more info. The other night I noticed my apartment turning all red/orange. I knew right away what it had to be but never got out in time to shoot it. If there's no cirrus that day and you get a colorful sunset, well there's something up there causing it. In this case....ash particles. From an eruption in Russia a couple weeks ago now. What happens is during the day it will appear as though there are no clouds, no cirrus. Then as the sun lowers, wala, you can see the ash particle field, if you are lucky and it's over you then. Here are a couple I got last night, but I got robbed by cirrus on the horizon from storms out west. That low cirrus band evidently blocked the sun after it set so I got little/no colors post sunset.

Now that band of clouds below the sun at the horizon, that is cirrus/anvil blow off from storms. That stuff higher up I'm 99% certain was ash stuff from the eruption. It really didn't start to show itself until the sun got lower. It really didn't look exactly like cirrus either...especially how it began to show itself.

It's very hard to see, perhaps impossible for some but at the very top of the above image, just right of center, you could see a speckly and banded/roll nature to this stuff. Hell I know where it is at and could barely find it again just now. It was very hard to even make out at the time. Sort of like roll clouds or accas clouds you see down low, but these were excessively high looking. As the sun lowered a bit more you couldn't see this stripe any more, the main obvious band. Anyway, it looks similar to cirrus streams I guess, but I'm just rather certain it was not. The biggest deal is the fact you can't see any clouds there till the sun got lower. Paul Hadfield got the show 2 nights before that I saw from my apartment here, with a few images on his blog HERE.

Update June 30, 2009: The current plan is to get the prints section and stock section worked on finally. Got quite a bit done yesterday on that but a long way to go. The prints thing hasn't been worked on in forever. I think I'll go with 16x24 perspective instead of 16x20(8x12 instead of 8x10 etc). That is what the camera shoots at anyway and more often than not cropping hurts images.

I have a few chase accounts I can add, but those will have to wait. Like the Oregon MO hailer supercell and the Hastings NE tornadic supercell(and some others). Both of those are probably more interesting on video than in stills. That is another thing. I might actually be able to make a new chase video finally with stuff from 2006-2009, but of course having to leave out the couple tornado days I already have included on Instability Released(4-6-06 and 3-28-07). Thanks to my computer not liking to capture from the canon HV20 it will probably require getting a new computer to do it, if that will even help. I can capture perfectly fine from the Sony HC1 HDV camera and have just never figured out what the deal is with capturing from the Canon HV20 HDV. Sections of video the computer just does not like to capture, yet the same sections are perfectly fine on playback. Should probably research all that before trying a new computer approach.

I hope I limit my chasing now as it never seems to end up worth it this time of year, unless it's something obvious. I was thinking on the last chase, when was the last time July paid off. 2004. But maybe that just means I'm due with July lol. In the past it paid off in 2000 nicely, 2001 sort of with hail and dog and wind and dirt video, 2002 a few days, and 2004 big bad Bartlett tornadic supercell. If there's much night lightning here I'll of course head out on those. Tonight actually has near record lows forecast in the low 50s. Crop fog "season" might start early this year. Wonder if that's cool enough for river or lake steam too. Anyway that's the current plan.

Update June 26, 2009: Starting to feel a bit like Forrest Gump at the end of his cross country ruuuunniang. Anyway, here's a couple images from a 700 mile shelf chase. Wound up west of Merriman NE on garbage, as feared, but the shelf action on the way home made it a bit more tolerable. West of O'Neill it got crazy, almost wanting to be supercellular in areas(line echo wave pattern stuff). I think the dewpoint in Ainsworth was 75 at one point. Like back home! Felt a bit odd being out there and sticking to anything and everything in the car. It's just too bad about the hot and dry 850/low level jet blasting away the southern parts of the line. It wanted to be epic almost.

I wish I would have been more north after this part as it looked pretty impressive up there. The thing was moving amazingly fast. Usually you head home and leave the storms behind. Not this thing. It was always right there on your heels. It made picture taking quite difficult. Couldn't spend a ton of time looking for a spot with no powerlines or it'd be on you again. One of the better night views I've had in a good while anyway. Kept looking back at the thing and saying all sorts of words.

Update June 22, 2009: June 21tst IA account now up HERE.

Update June 19, 2009: June 17th account now up HERE. I have some others to do, at some point.

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