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Thursday, June 14, 2018

Gateway Arch rainbow - June 14, 2018

By DAN ROBINSON

Editor/Photographer

From Dan: How the crime of copyright infringement took $1 million from me and brought down my business.

I've lost more than $1 million to copyright infringement in the last 15 years, and it's finally brought an end to my professional storm chasing operation. This page is a detailed account of the biggest threat to my photography and video operation that I had to battle daily to just barely survive, and eventually could not overcome. It's a problem facing all of my colleagues as well.

Yet another day in the Midwest when storms manage to beat the odds against a strong summer capping inversion, maintaining strength despite earlier forecasts for clear skies! A complex of storms fired in Iowa overnight and tracked southeast along an instability gradient all day, making it through the St. Louis metro late in the evening. I made my usual rounds to various Arch vantage points. The lightning was not very cooperative, but the rain held on just long enough for the sun's eventual peeking through under the storms' anvil to the west at sunset. This double rainbow was the result:

click to view full screen

A full late-evening rainbow in downtown St. Louis has been quite rare. There have only been 3 or 4 others since I moved here in 2010. The one I captured in May of 2010 was much more vivid, (those images are viewable here) but this one will nonetheless earn a place in my formal gallery.

The new Arch main entrance is visible in the above image. The completely-rebuilt museum, visitor center and tram access opens in less than 3 weeks, on July 3. This is a welcome sight for me, as it means no more unsightly construction, dirt piles, cranes and fences to hinder photography!

One other video frame of lightning from this storm - as I said, not very cooperative, but at least present: