This year’s storm chasing was in Arizona chasing the monsoon.
I chased with WeatherHolidays (www.weatherholidays.com) which was led by Paul Botten who is a very experienced storm chaser. This tour, unlike Plain’s chasing, is based from a fixed location (Papago Inn, Scottsdale, Phoenix, AZ).
The other two guests were Nicholas Lee, who was also a guest on the last WeatherHoliday tour I went on (2017) and Matt Feist.
We had a rather notable flight, or rather landing, into Phoenix on the evening of 30 July. The flight had already been heavily delayed leaving Heathrow and when we arrived into Phoenix the city was surrounded by a number of storms leading to a haboob affecting the city together with the other hazards associated with thunder storms. We had one aborted landing with the pilot cycling for around 30 minutes before being able to land – the landing was also very bumpy with many squeaky bums!
Day 1 (31 July 2018)
Today we drove south to Tucson and took a trip up Mt Lemmon (9,171 ft) north of Tucson where we watched the sunset.
The temperature outside the car is 106 °F (41 °C) which is rather toasty. A couple of pictures from the car showing the amazing scenery in Arizona, a couple of shots from the top of Mt Lemmon as the sun is setting.
The last photo shows the Milky Way and a distant (100+ miles) thunderstorm illuminated by lightning.
Day 2 (1 August 2018)
Today we again drove to Tucson and after lunch headed Eastwards towards Benson.
Stunning, beautiful and uncommon pileus caps with iridescence.
We see the storms bubbling away.
A number of severe storms pop up over the Tucson Valley area but shooting lighting from the East proves challenging with the dust and rain. After a few shots we drive North through the storms and spend an hour shooting amazing lightning over the Picture Rocks from near the Pinal Air Park.
These two pictures are the first daytime shots with my lightning trigger that I had shipped to our hotel – The trigger is from Stepping Stone Products – Lightning Trigger IV.
Day 3 (2 August 2018)
Today we headed a few miles south of Phoenix where it was very hot again.
Dust devils are a common sight especially south of Phoenix in the desert area. After lunch we drove to the top of South Mountain that overlooks Phoenix and the wider Phoenix sprawl. The view is spectacular from the various view points.
Afterwards we drove south towards a severe storm and we soon received alerts of a dust storm which all too quickly became apparent. We later learned that this haboob that was travelling North East towards Phoenix was 70 miles wide and 5,000ft high!
After the dust had blown through we were treated to further night time lightning and some before the sun-set. This picture is one with the lightning trigger:-
And now some of the many lightning pictures using the time honoured point at the sky and old shutter open for some seconds and repeat.
Day 4 (3 August 2018)
This morning Paul had been tracked down by a journalist at Fox10 Phoenix news. They wanted to interview a British storm chaser. Paul and I were interviewed by Steve Krafft. An interesting experience especially as I was recognised the next day by one of the reception staff who had seen my on TV! This is the Fox10 News website LINK.
Today we drove eastwards towards Globe and found ourselves near Benson east of Tucson after sunset.
Day 5 (4 August 2018)
Slim pickings for storms today. We headed south of Tucson and managed to view a nice little storm that produced a few CGs but not worth showing the pictures here due to the high standard of previous pictures.
We saw many dust devils during our holiday especially in the desert just to the south of Phoenix. Here are a couple of pictures the second of which shows the dust when we drove through one such dust devil.
Day 6 (5 August 2018)
For the 5th day in a row we found ourselves travelling south from Phoenix and East past Tucson. We stopped late afternoon to take stock and wait for storm initiation. I took the opportunity to take a time lapse of a small storm popping up.
We always try to find a spot for shooting lightning that is all too ourselves but it isn’t always possible.
Despite the “intruder” we did manage to get some shots of the elusive lightning. The last is a stack which is just a bit of fun.
We went on south of Benson with a view of storms over the Mexico border. Although we captured much lightning I have to say I’m not happy with the shots due to a lack of sharpness. I’m not sure if this is due to poor focusing, camera shake, haze or high ISO. Possibly a combination of all of them. But here is one shot and also a funky little animated gif.
Day 7 (6 August 2018)
We started the day in Benson where we had stayed the night. After taking a few pictures of some of the many swallows nesting at the motel we went to Tombstone for lunch. Later that evening were treated to a number of storms and some tough lightning shots.
The shot below is the result of a long exposure thing to catch lightning. The horizontal lights are the train passing and the red circular, solid and dotted, are the lights on the crossing gates as they opened. This is an unexpectedly funky shot.
Sign in a rest area. To be honest I hadn’t been planning on eating any snakes or scorpions for that matter!
Day 8 (7 August 2018)
This was to be our last day staying in Benson. We checked out the view from A-mountain overlooking Tucson where a storm spat out a few CGs. The shot below caught with my lightning trigger.
The trigger was being fired by IC lightning so I thought I would make a little gif showing the rain curtain.
Took a few pictures of the cactuses as one must.
After these we drove north but struggled to get views of lightning through the dust. Eventually we got north of the storms and dust and managed to get some nice shots.
Day 9 (8 August 2018)
Today we headed north of Phoenix having lunch at Wickenburg. This is where I captured a couple of nice daytime shots.
We headed south as storms formed south of us and were treated to some excellent lightning with the setting sun.
Day 10 (9 August 2018)
We chased north of Phoenix again today when an uncommon slight risk was issued.
The storms we selected refused to lay down the CGs we were after but did offer some opportunity for some nice pictures:-
An atmospheric shot with the blue colour in the clouds being the lightning that stubbornly refuses to leave the safety of the clouds.
Later on we did manage to find some storms putting down lightning but the dust in the atmosphere made for difficult visibility but those shots we did manage were very atmospheric.
Day 11 (10 August 2018)
Today would be our last day of chasing. Well, I’m not sure you’d call it chasing. Maybe “wait for the storms to come to you” would be more accurate.
Matt and Nicholas went out for a few beers last night so we knew they wouldn’t surface until later in the day but Paul knew storms were likely in the Phenix and he had a plan!.
Up South Mountain we went at around 5 pm with sandwiches and water. We set up at the Gila Valley lookout which has views North East, East and South East.
It seemed like ages until we saw our first cg about 80 miles away – It was around 7:45pm.
The first set of pictures are from the D7500 with 50-75mm lens. Towards the end of the series we see a massive haboob envelop the city. We eventually fled the top of the mountain to ensure this dust devil didn’t consume us.
This next shot shows a power flash – the green flash to the right of the lightning strike – this is a power transformer exploding following a lightning strike.
I also set up my D300 with a wider angle lens and boy am I glad that I did. The film below is a video made form the 127 stills to give you some idea of the incredible storm.
After we were run off the mountain by the haboob Paul & I dropped Nicholas and Matt at the hotel and we drove to try and photograph the last of the shots behind Phoenix downtown.
This holiday exceeded my expectations in every way. Arizona is a stunning State, Phoenix is a very interesting city and I even came to be able to put up with the heat.
Special thanks to Paul Botten for his skill in ensuring we were at a storm every day and put me in a position to capture the best lightning pictures of my life.
Here is the link for Weather Holidays.
Stuart Wilson Photography 