The Offlede

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

A soon-to-be tornado and other meteorological disappointments

We start this post with a chase that began way behind schedule. I had just arrived home when I realized a storm had popped up and was moving into the area I had just been. I grabbed my stuff -- or so I thought -- and left. I saw a nice gust front move northeastward as I raced to get in front of it along Interstate 526, an intended beltway that partially encircles Charleston. I took this shot by sticking my camera out my window at 70 mph and snapping away. Just happened to catch a bolt.

I continued to play catchup and took this shot while I was at a stoplight. Some spectacular lightning was coming from these clouds, backdropped by a golden sunset.

Another shot of the severe thunderstorm as I drove along North Rhett Avenue in North Charleston.

I decided that a shipping facility with heavy equipment was the best place to pull over and take some shots of the storm before it blew over me.

The clouds were ragged and interesting when lit by the setting sun, but lightning wasn't frequent at this point, unfortunately.

The sun began to shine through the light rainfall on the south side of the thunderstorm.

I passed Hanahan, where I tried to snap a few pics of lightning striking an airplane, then drove here, to Goose Creek. These low clouds seem consistent with a wall cloud, which is often a precursor to a tornado. Indeed, about 10 minutes later, a tornado warning was issued on this portion of the thunderstorm. A funnel cloud was spotted and filmed in the Francis Marion National Forest, well to the northeast of this location. Unfortunately, I had to snap this with a wide-angle lens because I had forgotten a memory card for my Nikon, to which my telephoto was affixed.

On an earlier day, I was in a community on Johns Island, reporting about a homicide that disrupted sleeping neighbors. En route back to the office, I saw sheriff's vehicles speeding to an unknown location. I followed them to this marina, where a man had been reported missing and was thought to have drowned. He lived on a boat here. I was distracted by far-off clouds that were part of a severe thunderstorm well to the north of the St. Johns Yacht Club.

This was a rather large anvil cloud, and I could hear thunder in the distance. No lightning was apparent.

This was the faraway storm, which was pretty much stationary over Summerville, which is about 30 minutes north of Charleston. I took this shot from the roof of The Post and Courier building just before the storm fizzled out.

On yet another day, I was driving home form West Virginia, where I visited my beautiful girlfriend, when I encountered some thunderstorms. Above is a shot of a few mammatus clouds that I snapped after briefly exiting Interstate 26 just south of Columbia, S.C.

I sort of liked this thin cloud on the opposite side of the sky from the thunderstorm. It was nearly sunset.

I tried taking photos of some spectacular lightning that I witnessed as I drove over the interstate. But all I got was some purple sky.

On another day near Ravenel, a small community west of Charleston, I tried photographing some interesting cloud cover associated with a storm that was, again, well off to the north. I was expecting the storm to move into the area, but it died instead. This is a shot of a "Jacob's ladder" as sunshine pierced the blanket of clouds.

I went out for a run one day and parked my vehicle outside the area Home Depot. That's my starting point for a little route I do. And I happened to take a liking to the clouds, the sun behind them, the shadow they were casting and the jet streaking through all the crepuscular-ray goodness.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Lightning on the Battery during night of tiny 'supermoon'

Can I just say that the so-called "supermoon" sucked? For some reason, it was hyped by the media, even though it was only 0.8 percent larger than last April's full moon and so much smaller than 2011's biggest (see my post from last year), when the moon was 248 miles closer to Earth than it was Saturday night. Had I done more research on it instead of blindly believing the headlines, I probably wouldn't have photographed this scene on the Battery last night. The shot overlooks Charleston Harbor with sailboats and Fort Sumter on the horizon.

A closeup after the moon emerged from a thick cloud bank on the eastern horizon. The clouds were a hindrance to viewing the moon at its largest, just as it rises. Earth's atmosphere, of course, magnifies the moon at that point.

Later on in the evening, some more clouds moved in, and we had a little lightning. I caught the very end of the show, long after it had moved far out to sea.

This looks across Charleston Harbor as lightning strikes in the Atlantic Ocean off Sullivan's Island.

Monday, April 16, 2012

I missed you, clouds

On one afternoon of thunderstorm warnings, I was out for my daily jog when the remnants of one system blew through. The storm had dissipated when it reached downtown Charleston, but these mammatus clouds were a nice treat. I took this shot next to some old smokestacks along East Bay Street.

South Carolina isn't Central Florida when it comes to active weather, but it's still the hot South, so thunderstorms do happen. A few weeks ago, we had a couple of days of atmospheric convection, which really kicked off the hot and stormy season.

These are some shots I got over the past several weeks.

I took several photos with my iPhone as I jogged over the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, which connects Charleston with the town of Mount Pleasant. The sun was filtering nicely through the clouds.

A large anvil cloud was associated with the storm that eventually died. This is the northern edge of it as I entered the final stretch of my run.

This was a long-lasting rainbow in Charleston - the other Charleston, in West Virginia - on St. Patrick's Day.

No, I did not find the gold.

On another day, I was waiting around for a line of thunderstorms to make its way to the Charleston area. About the time I snapped this shot of the distant clouds, a severe thunderstorm warning was issued.

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I was traveling in the wrong direction when a tornado warning was declared in a different storm to the west. I turned around and took this shot with my iPhone as I tried to reach the tornado-warned system.

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I saw the towering cumulonimbus cloud in the distance as I sped toward the storm.

I tried to no avail to find something interesting in this mess of cloud cover.

I looked all around at the clouds off U.S. 17 but couldn't really see anything interesting.

These clouds were turbulent and being whipped around by high winds. But I saw nothing that remotely resembled circulation.

On yet another evening, I left for a quick trip to the store without taking my camera. I knew, just knew when I left that I would end up regretting it. Sure enough, when I stepped out of Walmart, a large rainbow was arcing over this marsh, with these pink clouds in the background. It would've been a perfect shot. When I finally got home and grabbed my camera, it was gone.

On this day, the National Weather Service issued some severe thunderstorm warnings to the west and north of Charleston. As I caught a glimpse of this in the distance, I thought it was going to be something good.

Alas, it was just a line of dark clouds with nothing exciting following it.

On yet another day, more recently, I saw some pileus clouds atop some distant showers. Seemed liked a promising sign of storminess to come.

I then drove out west of Charleston and looked over the marshland along U.S. 17 while waiting for a line of thunderstorms to roll into the area.

I caught a few lightning bolts in the distance, but I had just removed my lens to switched it out when lightning struck directly nearby and directly in front of me. And of course, I missed it.

This system actually got better organized as it moved over me. A shelf cloud began forming overhead.

I followed the storm eastward to the Ravenel Bridge, under which I took shelter and tried to snap a few shots. Nothing special.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

The Offlede is back, with an article

It got down to 20 degrees one night in Charleston. I covered the story, taking pics of any natural ice formations I saw. These droplets froze to blades of grass along the water in downtown Charleston.

Somehow, the domain name for this blog since its inception, offlede.com, expired without my knowledge, and my attempts to get it back have failed.

A few weeks ago, my mother was the first to inform me that the page was blank when she logged on. A few days after that, a new blog was occupying its space. This new "The Offlede" is all about gambling, and I don't really understand it.

I've placed bids on GoDaddy.com, the site's host, to swipe it back. But with $10, I purchased a "the" and got TheOfflede.com for the meantime.

Now, back to business.

These are some miscellaneous photos from my first few weeks in Charleston.

After a lengthy standoff in North Charleston, this kidnapping suspect walked out while talking on the phone. He was otherwise unarmed.

The standoff was rather ordinary until SWAT officers bound the suspect's hands and feet, and carried him off like a wooden plank.

This large fire during my first week on the job burned three houses and damaged a few others in downtown Charleston, very close to the offices of The Post and Courier.

I enjoyed capturing the sun's starburst effect as it gleamed through this man's house, which was destroyed in the fire. Some kid set the blaze. The key to achieving this effect is a closed aperture.