StormySunday Archives - Bliss Photographics

Posted on September 6, 2020August 29, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Moon Above Mesocyclone

The First Quarter Moon has risen 1/2 an hour too early to be in the optimal position for me here. It’s still mostly a rule of thirds composition lol. This was taken in mid Civil Twilight. Roughly 15 minutes after scheduled sunset. There were additionally a host of storms behind me to my west. I was in a dark environment looking at a 30K foot high+ projector screen. That reflecting the “Belt of Venus” color gradient back to my photon capture boxes.

The Mammatus usually means a collapsing storm but they can be affiliated with serious weather. Being under this monster would have been less than desirable unless you get lucky to get just rain. It does happen. I might be hyper-sensitive to hail after watching chickens egg sized hard ice fall with all other sizes below for 1/2 an hour this July. These guys ruin insurance agents profit/loss ratios in the summer. They can certainly cause massive damage in their wake. That storm has as much energy as a small atomic weapon wound up in it’s rotation. There is a LOT of mass there too remember. I wonder how many gallons of water is suspended up there … humm.

A generic thunderstorm cloud contains enough water drops to fill up a 275 million gallon container. That’s around 2.3 billion pounds of water. Alternately = 1.1 million tons of water. Assuming a thunderstorm produced one inch of rain over one square mile. This would be 17.4 million gallons of water . Weighing 143 million pounds. Amounting to around 72,000 tons). Heavier than air all of it. Lots of energy to keep it all suspended up there eh?

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Moon Above Mesocyclone

Posted on August 16, 2020August 8, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Wyotana Hail Stones

These balls of ice (I have big hands) fell in all sizes for over 1/2 an hour in early July. I’ve been juggling replacing vehicles and settling insurance claims. It’s hard to keep up with all the paperwork and the immediate damage repair even a month later. Life on the great plains …🤘

Our ranch had a stripe of hail damage about a mile wide move right over the homestead. Though we had a hail event in 2008 that resulted in a low 6 figure dollar claim, this one is much worse. . It took over a year to repair all the damage in 08. I’d estimate this storm twice the damage with inflation and current costs.

My M813 Military Truck only had damage to the cheap accessory mirrors. All the military glass survived uncracked. No dents in that truck yet lol. I had two antique jeeps under roof but every other vehicle suffered damage including a very nice 1994 Jeep ZJ. Dented for sure. . It caught us off guard. I was up the hill taking photos and had just returned. There was no indication to me anything but a rain shaft was incoming until it was too late to act. Take cover and enjoy the show.

We have found no dead animals from this event here. Several surrounding ranches were also pelted with these balls and equally as damaged in this area. I’m aware of 3 homesteads effected it might be a bit more. That’s unusual for a low population density area. It’ was a big Mesocyclone. It just chose to send the big stuff at us. I’ve seen bigger but not many for as long a hail assault. MILLIONS of ball peen hammers hit the 47,000 square feed of metal roof we have over our buildings. I filmed these guys crashing through the porch roof. (skylights of fiberglass panels between metal sheets. ). Needless to say, it’s a long story lol. We are all fine and thank you for your best wishes in advance.

We will recover. Been here done this. YES the Raptor took roof dents. I didn’t buy a sunroof for a reason. Just a broken mirror, a cowling and about 200 top/rear dents. New vehicle this year…. Liberating, I don’t have to worry about dents now 👅. It will be repaired.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana).

Title: Wyotana Hail Stones

Posted on August 9, 2020August 8, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Rainbow With Hail Drifts

Mid-day the rainbow arch is very low to the ground. Rainbows late in the day are tall portions of a semi circle arch. Your just seeing the outside top edge of a big circular rainbow if you were in a plane looking from above. This is a pretty low bow…😜

IT looks like a sheet rainbow but that is only because the telephoto lens I’m using is looking at the base of this rainbow about 6 miles out. Telephotos CRUSH perspective by covering a LOT of distance into a small frame. There are a couple of ranch homesteads out in that country but you sure can’t see them from this vantage point. One of my limitations is the actual topography that I am on. I’d love to have a 1000 foot high peak around here with a good road up to the top …..👅 📸

This storm had a shaft of hail that JUST missed us. It did leave obvious drifts of white hail off in the distance. Way out looking across the Montana / Wyoming border just up into Montana from where I stand in Wyoming. The rainbow spans the border between the two states. I’d say the base of this bow is at least a mile wide from my perspective. The further back I get, the wider it will look within the limits of the rain area. So distance is usually your friend with long lenses. (I think that is rule #136 of photography).

Title: Rainbow With Hail Drifts

Posted on July 26, 2020July 18, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Wyoming Montana Mesocyclone

This is a pretty good capture of a mid-sized mesocyclone that is sitting on the Montana / Wyoming border along Rt 59 north of Gillette. It’s a growing one that went on to cause some trouble up in Montana. Missed me by 40 miles. That is how far away that is. This gives you a pretty good idea how big that growing storm is. I’d say it’s 20 miles across with a 10 mile wide rain shaft under it. Bear in mind that these storms can grow to 100 miles across and very high heights. Forty thousand feet is not unheard of for a big storm. They do spawn tornados but we only see about 1 a year over a pretty big local area.

The biggest threat from them is hail. Large areas of grassland get flattened by big hail stones. Often the grass’s heads are knocked off leaving stubble. Property damage as I just experienced is significant if one of these goes over your ranch’s homestead. We are looking into replacing every surface of the buildings here on the ranch again. Last done in 2008 when we had some soft ball sized hail but not as much. This year we just had up to 3 inch but mostly golf ball for about 30 minutes with a 30 mph wind from the north. I keep finding all sorts of broken things.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Wyoming Montana Mesocyclone

Posted on July 19, 2020July 13, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Mesocyclone Wall Cloud Mania

The power and magnitude of these massive high prairie cyclones is incredible. Here it is visible over 1/2 it’s girth. The power wrapped up in the slowly growing spinning monster is equivalent to an atom bomb. That power is expended over hundreds of miles of travel. Fortunately this is usually across huge areas of low population density. When these go over big cities, there is a lot of damage.

About a 5 days ago as I type this, one of this (not this one) traveled right over our ranch and homestead. My wife has been spending her “greater” time at home gardening all spring. We just put up a 60 x 20 foot covered greenhouse this spring.

The damage these storms can do to you of course depends on the intensity and WHICH part of the storm hits you. Then how long it stays over you is a big deal. We has a LOT of golf ball hail plus SOME 3 inch (almost small baseball from our storm. That was bad enough. So it sat over us for 1/2 an hour ebbing and flowing. Some of the biggest stones were near the end too . By then I was walking around with 3 inches of heavy folded canvas for an umbrella. I was dealing with emergencies best I could. I have film of ice balls breaking through a fiberglass roof panel.

Several careers have trained me to deal with emergencies. It becomes more than a training scenario when it happened literally 360 degrees around you lolol. Hunker down, take some images and start damage assessment. Bring in the Pros…

I have some more images from the hail storm but it’s hard to get to all of them with my normal load PLUS starting the repair. They will work into my timeline’s workflow as they do.

Yes my 2020 Ford F150 raptor was damaged by this. It’s a tough truck and short of a lot of small dents on the upper surfaces mostly, only has a broken drivers mirror, a few cracked light fixtures and a hole punched through a cowling by the wipers. It’s kind of liberating in fact. I’m not so worried about scratching it somewhere lol …. 😜 Now I will see what it can do (laughing maniacally).

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Mesocyclone Wall Cloud Mania

Posted on July 12, 2020July 5, 2020 by Frank Bliss

The Whole Lightning Bolt

Pointing a camera where a bolt had just hit has a good probability that a repeat performance is in order. It took me a second to zoom into where I thought the last strike was based on the residual image left on my retina . So I moved the camera, got it all set up just in time Flash…1,2,3,4 BOOOOM…. So not quite a mile just over the hill we call “Dobie” (don’t ask me why it’s called that). Looks to be a ground to cloud bolt..

It’s not too often I get a really large (OK, huge) bolt like this completely on the frame without cropping down a larger image. Usually the some leader is cut off. This is a full frame non-cropped image though. I couldn’t have centered it better if I knew ahead of time where it was going to be. Well I still had that ghost image in my eyes from that last flash lol.

There was a whole series of storms that moved through this evening. Each had it’s own character and lighting into sunset. I worked each and every one till the lightning and lighting subsided. There were some amazing captures from this timeline . I spent over 3 hours with this storm train. That is 1000 to 1500 image stuff. This will take a while to sort it all out. I had two cameras on lightning trigger and others free handed. I can run up to three cameras but it get’s to resemble a rats nest on my truck window.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: The Whole Lightning Bolt