On May 18, 2014, a group of storm chasers, called Basehunters, tracked a spectacular supercell thunderstorm over Wyoming, and created a time-lapse video documenting the formation from beginning to end. While that video depicts the manic situation that storm chasers go through, the opposite could be said about photographer Stephen Locke’s videos, which are calm and hauntingly beautiful, making you briefly forget that you’re watching a dangerous storm in the making.
Locke’s time-lapse video of a supercell formation near Climax, Kansas on May 10, 2014 – paired with ominous music – is more cinematic, with beautiful colors and video as smooth as if you were watching a movie, until you realize it was a real event. We remarked in the Basehunters Wyoming video how much it looked like CGI; in Locke’s video, it really does look like some computer magic is at play.
Supercell thunderstorms are responsible for generating major tornadoes in the U.S. Although they can occur at any time, in the Midwest and Plains regions of the U.S. tornadoes are generally highly active around this time, so we can expect to see plenty of videos uploaded to YouTube between April and June.
The Climax supercell isn’t the only storm Locke has recorded. Check out his website for more videos, which includes other natural phenomena as well.
(Via Colossal, Stephen Locke Photography)
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