9113 Lightning interlaced mammatus clouds

Labor Day Weekend storms

It’s been pretty dry around here for the better part of a month, but the late season storms experienced put on quite a show, and gave the area it’s much needed rain. On Friday evening (top row) the area was pummeled with high-winds and torrential downpours.

On late Sunday night, the skies above Chicago lit up with a brilliant lightning storm. The rain stayed away, mostly, and despite few good cloud to ground bolts to photograph, there was an amazing display of late-night mammatus clouds that were illuminated by cloud to cloud flashes – truly an awesome sight.

Over the course of both night, I took nearly 1,000 still frames from my balcony only ended up with about 8 final images, but it was worth it.  Next time a storm hits your area you can try giving lighting photography a shot – here’s my tutorial.

-Nick