May-June 2026 Storm Chasing Recap

Finally glad to be off of a 2-week interval of midnight shifts, my return to normal was welcomed by these storms moving through the northern St. Louis metro area after dark. I didn't think these would be worth driving far for, so I decided to shoot them with the 50mm lens from town at whatever distance they ended up being. The storms were high-based and the lightning very photogenic and visible for great distances. The flashes featured extensive vivid negative leader trees below cloud base.

This distant cell, 62 miles away just west of Effingham, showed the structure of the lightning flashes with these storms. The positive end of the bidirectional leader tree was inside of the cumulonimbus tower, with the negative end poking down below the cloud bases.