Storm Print – Mamma Mia

2018 was a dreadful year for storms as the jetstream decided it would be fun to migrate up into Canada and thus severely limit the potential for severe weather. Much of our tour through that year was filled with anaemic, short lived storms and supercells but there were some diamonds in the rough to be found.
One such gem that saved us from another near-fruitless chase was this low precipitation supercell near Durham, Oklahoma seen here in its final throes as the updraft is finally choked off. Its saving grace was the incredibly low-hanging mammatus underneath the anvil canopy through which lightning still rippled.
This storm was also a savage lightning producer having set fire to a couple of parched fields throughout our chase; quite the obvious danger in drought hit areas that year.

I shot this image at 16mm on my crop sensor Canon 80D to get as much of the storm in the frame as possible as well as the road disappearing into the horizon. Even with the effect of wide angle reducing the relationship of scale, you still get a sense of the size and proximity of the mammatus overhead which were obviously much bigger and closer than they appear. I adore their translucent, almost ghostly texture, like bubbles of smoke, and the serendipitous flash of lighting through the anvil.