Monday, December 30, 2013

Zoo, a Very Warm Day in Late December.

This Winter has luckily not been too harsh.  Last Saturday, after a week of ice and snow on the ground, temps elevated into the 50's and provided some much needed snow melt and a chance to get out.
Meh, Hibernation

Still Too Cold Outside.

Playing With Your Food

Lazy Saturday

Master of His Domain

Warm in the Sun

In Trouble

Don't Tick Off the Gorillas.

International Space Station

On December 28th, the International Space Station passed almost directly overhead.  Lights on the clouds were from nearby light pollution.  Cassiopeia is to the right.


Sunday, December 8, 2013

ICT Winter Bazaar 2013

Rumination of Thunder photography and yours truly will be at the ICT Winter Bazaar in Wichita at Century II from 3pm to 7pm today!

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Final Friday at R Coffee House in Riverside on Black Friday













I will be showing some of my work at R Coffee House in Riverside for Final Friday from 7pm to 9pm.  I will also have my matted 4x6's and novels for sale.  If you are interested in specific sizes of my work, contact me at father_thunder@cox.net.


http://www.rcoffeehouse.biz/


View Larger Map













Thursday, November 21, 2013

Fat Plane on a Little Runaway

It's not every day that the hometown makes national news.  Ok, due to tornadoes and serial killers, it does happen.  Apparently, a pilot mistook landing lights to be the rather large McConnell Air Force Base instead of a very small public runway north of Wichita.  Somehow they were able to land in the itty bitty airport before finding out they were 9 miles to the north.  The runway was 3,000 feet too small for a proper takeoff, so they unloaded all the cargo, put in enough fuel to make it across town, and took off.  We had a cold front hit with drizzle, luckily they were able to take off, because Jabara Airport doesn't have a deicer large enough to handle the jet.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

10/04/2013 Severe Weather Event, Meh

With some strong tornadoes coming from the same cold front in Nebraska and Iowa, the Kansas portion of the storm had a threat of becoming a strong squall line.  Around 3:30 the dry line and cold front began initiation to the west of Wichita.  Movement went very slowly, by 5:00 I was out NE of Wichita and waiting until about 6:30 before it moved in.  The storm pulled quite a lot of rain cooled air into the inflow and somewhat limited the squall lines development.  It did go briefly severe, with some smaller hail threat.  These dynamics gave rise to a couple discrete supercells that dumped rain and caused an impressive amount of lightning in the Wichita area.
I'm going to miss this over winter.



I noticed the speck of dirt on the lens about half way through the storm.  Unfortunately, it followed through the panoramic.

Mammatus clouds starting forming to the left on the high point of the clouds.

Beaver tail pulling rain cooled air into the inflow.


Sunday, September 22, 2013

Sunflower Visual Arts Festival in Lucas

The next few months will be busy with Ruminations of Thunder.  Saturday, September 28th I will be in the beautiful town of Lucas for The Sunflower Visual Arts Festival http://thecovertcreekpress.wix.com/svaf.

There are also two upcoming Final Fridays in Wichita which will be announced soon, stay tuned.


Thursday, August 15, 2013

Did We Need More Rain?

Not really, but at least we are out of drought.

A severe warned thunderstorm, but the area of concern seemed to be to the east of my location.  Lots of rain and temps dropped down into the low 60's.




Thursday, August 1, 2013

Rain

What a difference a year makes.  We've suffered through drought the last three years to the point that city leaders were looking for new water sources.  July made the difference.  7.68" of rain fell in a moderately cool July (12+ degrees cooler than the average daily temp in July of 2011 and 2012 (http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=ict&storyid=96380&source=0).  Unfortunately, a side effect of this rain has been flooding.  Lindsborg, KS has been hard hit by flooding rains affecting up to 50 people in town.

Monday, I decided to take a little walk and revisit one of the places I went to last October, the Little Arkansas River.

October 2012, Little Arkansas River near 21st and West streets.

October 2012, Little Arkansas River


After 7+ inches in July.

Meeting of the Little Arkansas and Arkansas Rivers.  There's usually a small waterfall here.

Wichita's saving grace, the Big Ditch.
 More rain may be coming between tonight and next Wednesday.  Flooding chances still remain a possibility.