Monsoon Lightning
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One of things about monsoon lightning is you never know where it will strike. Of course this can be said about lightning in general but with the Arizona monsoons it gets even more complicated.
Monsoon Lightning Dances in a Rain Cell
Not only do our monsoon storms bring about stunning electric light shows they also bring massive dust storms known as haboobs. These crazy combinations can cook up the wildest looking weather pictures. The image above is something (until now) I had never been able to capture.
A lightning strike inside of a rain cell typically is buried so far in you never see it. This storm was one that started in the northeast valley of Phoenix and made its way all the way down to Casa Grande. I was able to stay ahead of this one the whole time it was active. It began just south of Fountain Hills where it dropped a tremendous amount of rain before moving southwest. That rain cell was quite large and I figured this storm wouldn’t last much longer. Not only did it survive it grew in size as it made its way down Interstate 10 towards Casa Grande.
As I outran the storm I knew I would probably have one more chance of getting a few images of it. Sunset was approaching and if my timing was right I figured I could get an amazing image to cap off the day. This has to be one of the most colorful monsoon lightning shots I’ve ever taken. Very little post processing was done to this shot. Almost all of it can be chalked up to Mother Nature doing her thing, and nobody does it better.
Until next time…
Gorgeous shot Chris! Awesome!
Talk about drama. Great shot Chris.
Stunning!