May 20 - Greensburg Gold

This is the sort of day that a photographer dreams about. Outstanding colours, gorgeous structure and slow moving supercells. Original target was between Pratt and Greensburg, and the storms had little risk of becoming tornadic with a weak low-level shear profile, but still provided the most photogenic day of the trip, and one of the best we've seen in the states. While we had a huge number of shots from this day, we have only chosen a sample of the top shots for brevity. Our chase target was rewarded with us being amongst the first on the nice supercell which formed SW of Greensburg.

The amazing thing was, it was only a taste of things to come. The second and third supercells were also photogenic (though they couldn't even make either of our top 4s), and as the hordes of chasers descended they were drawn away by the earlier cells moving northeast. As the cells moved into this environment they became more outflow dominant, and we dropped onto the southernmost cell (4th supercell and the storm of the day), which turned out to be the best of the lot.

The supercell's base was separated from the rear-flank downdraft and foward flank downdraft  such that you could drive between them, offering a unique view of many of the features of a supercell that you rarely get to see (without driving into a tornado or copping the really big hail).

It left us unconcerned that we were behind the storm, knowing that if somehow the storm managed to go tornadic we would see what was going on.

The photographic opportunities only improved as the sun got lower, and we were rewarded with a sunset that was beyond belief, and these two shots from 'feathers' show the closest thing to being there, we only wish you could have seen it.

A grand day for photography, and one that will be etched into our memories for many years to come.

Crikey and Feathers