This tree in Spring Hill Cemetery in Charleston, WV was
struck by lightning in July of 1998. The strips of bark pictured at right came from this tree. These two views show the resulting scars of removed
bark and wood (Click on each photo to enlarge):
This tree has two major scars caused by some of the return strokes
following separate paths down both of the tree's main branches. In one of
the scars, you can see the two grooves carved where two return strokes flashed
side-by-side. After photographing the tree, I collected all of the strips of bark (visible in the left photo- also pictured here) that had been blown off and took them home.
After examining the strips, (some about 3 feet long, 3 inches wide,
and perfectly straight), it appeared that the lightning had traveled
under the first layer of wood- each 1 inch-thick strip had a 3/4
inch-thick layer of wood underneath the layer of bark.
This tree was struck about 1 to 2 weeks before this picture was
taken. 1 week after the above photos were taken, the tree's leaves were
withering and beginning to turn brown, evidence that this tree was likely killed by the strike.
These two photos (below) of the same tree were taken on February 19, 1999, almost 7 months after the previous two photos. You can see the bark falling off in large patches.
My work is, at this very moment you are reading this, generating the most income it ever has in my career. Yet, I was forced to shut down the professional side of my successul operation, against my will, due to one cause alone: 95% of that revenue is being stolen by piracy and copyright infringement. 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. Do not be misled by the lies of infringers, anti-copyright activists and organized piracy cartels. This page is a detailed, evidenced account of my battle I had to undertake to just barely stay in business, and eventually could not overcome. It's a problem faced by all of my colleagues and most other creators in the field.
Web Site Design and Internet Marketing by CIS Internet
From Dan: Please Read
To my regular readers, I offer my apologies for this heavy-handed notice. Unfortunately it has become necessary, so please bear with me!
Please don't copy/upload this site's content to social media or other web sites. Those copies have been a critical problem for me, seriously harming this site and my photography/storm chasing operation by diverting traffic, viewers, engagement and income. "Credit" and "exposure" does not benefit this site or my operation, rather they threaten my ability to cover my operating expenses. Please read my full explanation for this notice here.
Before continuing, check each box to agree to and acknowledge these two statements:
Click this button to finalize this acknowledgement:
This chase was a routine television assignment in my role as a cameraman. As a result, many of these don't have a dedicated chase log.
This chase was only recorded in my mileage reports, no detailed log was written for it.
