I see a lot of V-22 Ospreys ( they build them here) and every time I hear one zooming by, I grab my camera. When i heard one (on my aero-band scanner) coming in from a test hop, and i saw what a great sunset was shaping up, I hoped the two would come together. the Osprey is a little blurred ( I was shooting at 1/30 th of a second) but I think it helps the shot.
If the passengers on that airplane felt their collective hearts stop for a moment, it wasn't due to the electric current from the lightning strike running through their bodies. In fact, airplanes getting struck by lightning is a fairly common occurrence -- more common than you might realize. Because the aluminum hull of an aircraft is highly conductive, an electrically charged storm cloud will tend to induce a charge separation (or polarization) on the outer surface of any airplane in the vicinity. This creates a difference in potential -- a.k.a. voltage -- between the cloud and the plane, resulting in a discharge of electric current between them. Since there is also a potential difference between the airplane and the tarmac, the lightning discharges right through the airplane and into the ground. But why doesn't the gigantic amount of current, which is in the neighborhood of 20,000 amps for a typical lightning bolt, harm the passengers inside the aircraft? Because the hull of the plane forms a Faraday cage! A Faraday cage is a hollow shell made of conducting material. A strong electric field outside the cage will force the charge in the material of the cage to redistribute itself, but the interior space inside the cage remains uncharged. As long as you're inside the airplane, not on its surface, it can get struck by lightning all day and you'll be fine -- physically, at least, although you may feel a bit freaked out. What's much more dangerous for airplanes than lightning is the turbulent weather that usually accompanies an electrical storm. For the same reason, you don't get electrocuted when lightning strikes your car (provided your car is made of metal and not fiberglass, you don't have a cloth convertible roof, and you're not touching the outside surface). It's a common misconception that the insulating rubber tires protect you. Not true. It's the Faraday cage.
We had a few "bubblies" pop up around town today - turned into nothing but they were enough to briefly cause the local air traffic control to route approaching airliners over my apartment.
Snapped this as Southwest flew over rattling the windows. Welcome to Amarillo!
Even on fair-weather days our skies provide good photo opportunities .
Very pretty - and very dusty - but this twister looks like a rather weak low energy tornado. Doesn't even seem to damage the trees or homes, thank goodness!
Another severe weather season has come and gone, and unlike the wild weather that plagued the country during the early weeks of Spring, our severe weather season was quite (unfortunately for us storm chasers) less than spectacular.
Sure we had some great and photogenic storms and i got some amazing shots this season, but this year we had a unusually cool summer.
We still have plenty of warm weather ahead and our secondary severe storm season ( as powerhouse cold fronts begin to sweep down from Canada and collide with moist Gulf air) and is something I always look forward to every year ( once I went storm chasing on Halloween) but for the most part our severe weather season is all but over.
Overt the next few weeks I will be posting some of my photos i took this severe season, so check back often. Once that has been done, look for fall foliage and then snow scenes, if we have any this year.
I hope you have enjoyed this blog and will visit it often.
-Steve Douglass
Photographed at 9:15 PM on 8-24-08.
A small but beautiful thunderhead popped up just before dusk north of Amarillo, almost a wave goodbye to summer.
I just completed my weather video for this year. Since it wasn't exactly a banner year, I was forced to add a few images from my archives to flesh the thing out.
Crank up the volume, I worked hard on the sound as well.
Keep in mind, this is not meant to be storm chaser video diary, but rather an emotional expression on how it feels to be an insignificant human humbled by the beauty of our immense Panhandle skies.
The music is from August Rush - it fit just perfectly what I had in mind, which was to capture the majesty and reverence i have for our amazing weather vistas.
Photographer Shelley Sparks shot this "Arcus" cloud photograph of tonight's approaching storm. The ragged leading edge and layered appearance is due to a wave of moist air being pushed out ahead of the storm.
It was severe before it came into Amarillo but turned to rain once it hit the city.
I shot this just NW of Amarillo this evening on Loop 335 , just north of I-40. Xcel energy was saying today because of an equipment failure they may have to initiate rolling blackouts across the city. Why can't they just capture some lightning?
I did.
-Steve Douglass
P.S. Thanks Dale for toting me out there with ya tonight!
