Storm Chasees

While the level of Lawn Lake has receded somewhat, the storm or series of storms (we can't tell which it is) refuses to leave. We did manage to head out and tag the urchins on Friday night during a brief lull, but had to end the tracking phase of our night a little prematurely when the thunder and lightning kicked up around 4am. Last night we tried again, but a huge electrical storm rolled through so that was nixed. The storm was pretty impressive, too - bolts of lightning (or at least flashes) every second or two, sustained over a couple of hours. Trying to make the best of a bad situation, I looked online to see how to take good lightning pictures with my camera. Unfortunately, by the time I got the long exposure thing worked out and my camera's battery recharged, the storm had moved over the hill a little. I still managed to get a few decent shots of the hill silhouetted against the storm.


This picture was taken with a 15 second exposure. Aside from the flashes of lightning and the lights across the bay, everything was pitch black. You can actually see a very small, yet distinct, bolt of lightning just to the right of the main peak. The "streaking" of the lights across the bay is their reflection off the water, unlike all of my other shots where the same effect was achieved through the blur caused by me trying to prop up and hold my camera without the aid of a tripod.

Today is already blue-skied and sunny, though, so we should be set to finish up our tracking over the next few nights, and hopefully be done with all data collection by the weekend. If we get stormed out again, though, at least now I'll have something to do...