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All Images Copyright Terry Pallister
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| Radar showed
a strong thunderstorm drifting slowly toward the New Orleans area from
the NE from about 7 pm. On rare occasions during a summer evening
such storms may hold on and make it before dying out. About 9:05
pm I was finally able to capture a few images until 9:30. The storm
was far away and I had to zoom in as much as possible. What lightning
that was still occurring was scattered around the horizon to the NE, making
the capture of anything on tape very difficult. The storm weakened
but dragged on and on after 9:30. I waited to see if any new lightning
might develop. Finally I gave up about 11 pm and went home.
The first and third pictures above show extensive branching of two different positive lightning flashes at their last point before connecting with the water. This was also seen in the storm in Gallery V-2 on Saturday, August 16, 1997 (Click here to see that image for comparison, and click back to return to this gallery page). The two flashes here were hidden in the cloud until they emerged at the cloud base. The other two images above show succeeding frames of each of the two flashes. At this point I had not drawn the paralleled comparison with the evil omen. In the August 16, 1997 flash I had only thought to myself that this type of lightning looked evil in a frame by frame review. It is just as well that I hadn't. In just 2 more days Nikki was to lose her 11 month battle with renal kidney failure. After I lost Nikki I began to see the correlation between capturing this type of flash with extensive branching and the unfortunate events that followed both times. |
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| This storm looked quite promising. Thick dark clouds built up all around, but there were only a couple of lightning strikes. The strike above was 2.5 miles away, looking ENE from the back of the airport at 2:15 pm. |
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| This storm formed
late in the morning on the south side of the airport. Being at ground
level, this side is not as safe as when I am on one of the balconies on
the north side. Having just lost Nikki 10 days before, I was still
in a very down and I don't care what happens to me mood. So, defiantly,
I decided to set up facing SSW toward downtown New Orleans where the darkest
clouds were. At first there were a few very close strikes facing
SSE which I didn't get. The last 2 images on the top row are successive
frames showing branches from the lightning's first return stroke in both
connections to the ground. The strikes above occurred between 11:40
and 11:55 am, and ranged between 1.5 and 3 miles away.
The storm drifted slowly to the NW. So, I decided to move to the other side and up to the balcony that is open to the W and WSW. |
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| I huffed and
puffed up to the balcony on the north side and set up facing to the open
west side of the airport. It is amazing that when you want to do
something bad enough you can really move far faster than you think.
As I rushed onto the balcony I was amazed at how dark the sky had become
to the west. It wasn't nearly as dark on the other side just a few
minutes before.
I pushed the start button at noon and 2 minutes later I was rewarded with the spectacular strikes shown in the 2 images of the top row above, facing toward the WSW. Two completely different strikes coming from different areas of the cloud. The second strike had multiple return strokes. Another brilliant bolt struck a few minutes later and is the last picture on the top row. Lightning was not as frequent as it was when the storm first formed and I was out front. After several more minutes of waiting I was rewarded with a 4 bolt strike sequence hit near 12:30 pm. The 4 single bolt pictures on the second and third row all struck within a few frames. The last picture on the third row shows all four bolts merged. |
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| The very next
day another storm formed in about the same place on the south side of the
airport just after 1:30 pm. I had checked outside at 1:10 pm and
none of the clouds appeared to be that close to developing into a storm.
When I checked again and saw the action already underway, I rushed out
front to set up. Once again the curse of no windows in the building
delayed me from being on time. I was still in a defiant mood after
the loss of Nikki, so I again took unwise risks with the storm moving in
so close. For the first several minutes lightning cracked very close,
as close as 0.2 miles away. But they were off toward the SSE while
the camera was facing SSW toward downtown New Orleans. I was feeling
frustrated. Some airport maintenance people pulled up to talk to
me. I started the camera and moved away so that our voices wouldn't
be heard so much on tape. While we were talking, the lightning started
striking right in the perfect place. The 1st and 3rd images
on the top row above are classics. After the men went inside I zoomed
back out to hopefully get more of the close by strikes, but the lightning
shifted back toward the edge of the rain shield. All the strikes
happened in just a 5 minutes span between 1:48 and 1:53 pm and ranged between
1.5 and 3.5 miles away.
The wind picked up and blew in on me as the storm drifted northward. The rain began and forced me to move up to the balcony that faces northward, but the lightning didn't want to move to that side of the building with me. Then the storm weakened. I wonder how many great shots I missed before I first got set up! Hopefully there were none. |
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| About 1:15 pm I headed to the airport as a storm was developing off to the W and WSW. I set up and didn't get anything worthwhile. The storm weakened soon after. Then I noticed that a dark cloud was building just to the south. So, I moved to the front of the airport and shot toward the south. Only a few strikes occurred just before 1:40 pm. I got the only worthwhile strike, just 1 mile away. But this was only the beginning of a very long day. |
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| After the first
storm weakened, I packed up my gear and started toward the car. Off
to the SE was a new cell developing with a few distant rumbles too far
away to produce lightning worth taping. I decided to wait to see
what might happen. Sure enough lightning started in a good position
for me to set up again. For 30 minutes starting at 2:07 pm, I got
the 6 pictures above. They ranged between 2 and 5 miles away.
All the storms were drifting very slowly to the east. This storm also had somewhat unusual development on the back side to the west of the main cell. The cloud in the back side of the main cell never really developed a good rain shield, so I didn't think the strikes would continue off to the right so far. I was wrong, but still there were several of nice images that I did get. |
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| A little before
7 pm I noticed that it seemed to be getting dark outside. I went
out and sure enough thick clouds were developing all around.
So I rushed back to the airport to set up for the third time. I couldn't
decide where to set up because the clouds were on all side except to the
NW over the Lake. Where was the best lightning once the storm got
going? Of course, it was to the NW over the Lake.
My decision to set up on the front side was finally made after 20 minutes of waiting for something to happen. A really nice strike hit just to the SSE. But as I soon learned, lightning on this side of the building was not going to be frequent at all. Rain began. The humidity became unusually oppressive. That combined with a fine mist spray from the rain soon dampened the outside of the camera. I kept drying it off and shooting when I could. The strikes that did occur were not especially good because of the rain, even though they were only 1 to 3 miles away. The shot above was facing SSW toward downtown New Orleans just after 7:20 pm. |