Beautiful storms.
July 30, 2015 11:45 AM   Subscribe

 
That was amazing.

I love how it really captures the idea that we live in an ocean of air.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 12:01 PM on July 30, 2015 [4 favorites]


Fantastic. For a very long time I've wanted to go chase after storms, but never find my way to properly getting around to it. Living in LA, it was an exceptional once-in-a-decade event a few weeks back when a cell flew by my house. I was giddy as a kid sitting there, looking out the window, watching the flashes and listening to the thunder.
posted by chimaera at 12:13 PM on July 30, 2015


Amazing timelapse shots. Many show that there are two or more independent and stable rivers of air right alongside. I was expecting to see some of the flows finally loop around each other and turn into a tornado, but catching one of those ahead of time must be impossible to guess ahead of time, perhaps when the live sensors and real time computation gets to a god like level that the almost-singularity level computer can say, set your camera at these coordinates.

Too bad they couldn't get Philip Glass, the music was good but didn't grab me.
posted by sammyo at 12:19 PM on July 30, 2015


Living in LA, it was an exceptional once-in-a-decade event a few weeks back when a cell flew by my house. I was giddy as a kid sitting there, looking out the window, watching the flashes and listening to the thunder.

OMG THE THUNDER. I heard a crack and thought I was hallucinating. L.A. is my town for life, but man, do I miss real thunderstorms.

(As far as the video goes, the footage is lovely, but I would watch an hour-long movie in something closer to real-time rather than six minutes in time-lapse mode. And I always watch these videos on mute.)
posted by mykescipark at 12:21 PM on July 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


This is really cool. At the same time, though: ARRGH! STOP CUTTING AWAY! ARRGH!
posted by Sys Rq at 12:28 PM on July 30, 2015 [3 favorites]


" I love how it really captures the idea that we live in an ocean of air."

Yep, and tornadoes are where the swirling drain thing happens.
posted by Blackanvil at 12:33 PM on July 30, 2015


That was magnificent. I have considered storm chasing for a good bit of time now. I have a big fear of strong storms and I face it by learning as much as I can about how and why they happen (which has made me fall in love with them on the flip side of my fear). Thanks for the share.
posted by anya32 at 12:33 PM on July 30, 2015


That was so gorgeous.
posted by rtha at 12:34 PM on July 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


This was incredible. Wasn't there something similar posted a few months ago? I"d like to go back and watch that video as well.

Edit: I think I found it https://vimeo.com/22439234 but it's more star-focused than awesome storm focused.
posted by exhilaration at 12:38 PM on July 30, 2015


Stunning. The mammatus clouds at 2:38, the variety of colors, everything.
posted by Existential Dread at 12:44 PM on July 30, 2015 [3 favorites]


There's a brief moment at around 2:43 where the setting sun gives the lower clouds pinkish glow...I'd love to frame that and put it up over my desk in my office.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:01 PM on July 30, 2015


Utterly beautiful. Kind of scary, but utterly beautiful.
posted by 4ster at 1:02 PM on July 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Stunning. And a reminder that we humans are helpless little specks of matter in the face of the power of nature.
posted by billiebee at 1:26 PM on July 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Might want to put a seizure warning on it. Some of the lightning storm time lapse shots are pretty intense.
posted by jedicus at 2:09 PM on July 30, 2015


Mike Olbinski is local to me, and while I don't know him personally, I follow his Twitter/Instagram accounts and have followed his photography for years. I always get super excited when I see him getting the recognition he deserves for his incredible work. He's the photographer that captured the incredible haboob over Phoenix a couple years ago.
posted by TurquoiseZebra at 2:15 PM on July 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Amazing. Thanks for posting.
posted by persona au gratin at 2:20 PM on July 30, 2015


I've recently been reading about pillow books from China (ancient books on how to have sex) and two common terms are cloud for vagina and rain for penis. I've been pondering how that came about and this video helped me make sense of how clouds and rain can be euphemisms for intercourse.
So uhh. Yeah. TMI I guess. Wonderful video thanks for sharing!!!
posted by Annika Cicada at 3:24 PM on July 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


mykescipark: "OMG THE THUNDER. I heard a crack and thought I was hallucinating. L.A. is my town for life, but man, do I miss real thunderstorms."

It has never occurred to me that there is any place that doesn't have thunderstorms.
posted by double block and bleed at 5:12 PM on July 30, 2015


It has never occurred to me that there is any place that doesn't have thunderstorms.

When I moved from Texas to Northern California, it was shocking and hilarious and disorienting and baffling to learn that when it thunders here, it actually makes the evening news.
posted by mudpuppie at 6:32 PM on July 30, 2015 [3 favorites]


Screw space aliens, the atmosphere is a MONSTER that is trying to KILL US ALL.

#MovingToPluto OH WAIT IT HAS AN ATMOSPHERE TOO. Dammit.
posted by Bringer Tom at 6:55 PM on July 30, 2015


It has never occurred to me that there is any place that doesn't have thunderstorms.

I grew up in the US southeast, now I live in the Pacific northwest...I miss proper loud thunderstorms.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:29 PM on July 30, 2015


I'm just the opposite way. I appreciate a good thunderstorm, but having moved from Nova Scotia to southern Ontario, the one thing I really, really miss is drizzle. Not rain exactly, so much as fog so thick it falls down. That just doesn't happen here.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:49 PM on July 30, 2015


I liked the part with the clouds.
posted by flabdablet at 4:19 AM on July 31, 2015 [1 favorite]


> When I moved from Texas to Northern California, it was shocking and hilarious and disorienting and baffling to learn that when it thunders here, it actually makes the evening news.

I was sitting in my office some weeks ago when all the lights went out. It's an interior office (no windows) on the bottom floor of the building. I wandered out to see what had happened and when I got upstairs I joked that the construction crew down the road must have busted something. Everyone stared at me and they were like, did you not hear the GIANT CRACK OF THUNDER?

So once again, I managed to miss the annual thunderstorm. Sigh. It's one of the few things I really miss from living in DC.
posted by rtha at 6:12 AM on July 31, 2015


One of Texas' redeeming features is the ability to watch giant clouds/storms dance above you pretty much from anywhere. Secondarily, our devotion to top-of-the-line radar systems and interactive maps speaks to our fear of tornadoes but also means we get a lot of attention to weather in general. Weather reports in non-tornado states are considerably less interesting/detailed.
posted by emjaybee at 8:29 AM on July 31, 2015


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