Blue Jet captured in Western Australia
Here in Europe this fact may go unnoticed, but today 26 January 2014 is Australia Day! A fitting moment to share an outstanding piece of Australian natural beauty captured by Jason Harris in Broome, Western Australia on January 3rd this year.
Jason: "As it turns out I actually have more than one from the same event. The
particular storm was probably around about 60km from my location in
Broome from what I can make out from radar images at the time. The
particular storm fired off the first jet during a period of rapid fresh
updrafts. Obviously I wasn’t at all prepared for it but I immediately
adjusted some camera settings on the off chance it might fire again and
after a period of pretty intense CG discharges it quietened off for say
30 seconds before firing 4 more jets within a period of about 30
seconds, all of which I managed to capture. I have been told one of the
shots is perhaps a “starter” but it may also just be a case of not
picking up the full channel. I will say this, no photograph can EVER do
justice to what I saw with my own eyes. Truly spectacular event that I
won’t forget in a hurry."
Asked about the storm's flash rates and development, Jason added:
"I first set up the camera around 10pm framing up a couple of other
discreet cells further to the south of the particular storm that fired
off the jets. The original storms were probably over 150km away as I was
shooting at 200mm. The storm in the photo went up on the outflow
boundary of the earlier storms around 11.30pm and continued for perhaps 2
hours while tracking from the east to west towards Broome. The jets
were fired off in the formative stages of the thunderstorm between about
11.35 and midnight. After that the storm went through several stages of
redevelopment but became somewhat cluttered with strata rubbish as it
moved closer. GPATS data from the night suggests around 3000 CG strikes
emanating from this storm during it’s lifetime so not overly active by
Kimberley storm standards but certainly not a “quiet” one neither."
Additional images and information was shared on a weather forum:
Lee Crees, a friend of Jason, captured his first sprite:
posted by Oscar van der Velde at 18:22
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home