On one afternoon of thunderstorm warnings, I was out for my daily jog when the remnants of one system blew through. The storm had dissipated when it reached downtown Charleston, but these mammatus clouds were a nice treat. I took this shot next to some old smokestacks along East Bay Street.
South Carolina isn't Central Florida when it comes to active weather, but it's still the hot South, so thunderstorms do happen. A few weeks ago, we had a couple of days of atmospheric convection, which really kicked off the hot and stormy season.
These are some shots I got over the past several weeks.
These are some shots I got over the past several weeks.
I took several photos with my iPhone as I jogged over the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, which connects Charleston with the town of Mount Pleasant. The sun was filtering nicely through the clouds.
A large anvil cloud was associated with the storm that eventually died. This is the northern edge of it as I entered the final stretch of my run.
This was a long-lasting rainbow in Charleston - the other Charleston, in West Virginia - on St. Patrick's Day.
No, I did not find the gold.
On another day, I was waiting around for a line of thunderstorms to make its way to the Charleston area. About the time I snapped this shot of the distant clouds, a severe thunderstorm warning was issued.
I was traveling in the wrong direction when a tornado warning was declared in a different storm to the west. I turned around and took this shot with my iPhone as I tried to reach the tornado-warned system.
I saw the towering cumulonimbus cloud in the distance as I sped toward the storm.
I was traveling in the wrong direction when a tornado warning was declared in a different storm to the west. I turned around and took this shot with my iPhone as I tried to reach the tornado-warned system.
I saw the towering cumulonimbus cloud in the distance as I sped toward the storm.
I tried to no avail to find something interesting in this mess of cloud cover.
I looked all around at the clouds off U.S. 17 but couldn't really see anything interesting.
These clouds were turbulent and being whipped around by high winds. But I saw nothing that remotely resembled circulation.
On yet another evening, I left for a quick trip to the store without taking my camera. I knew, just knew when I left that I would end up regretting it. Sure enough, when I stepped out of Walmart, a large rainbow was arcing over this marsh, with these pink clouds in the background. It would've been a perfect shot. When I finally got home and grabbed my camera, it was gone.
On this day, the National Weather Service issued some severe thunderstorm warnings to the west and north of Charleston. As I caught a glimpse of this in the distance, I thought it was going to be something good.
Alas, it was just a line of dark clouds with nothing exciting following it.
On yet another day, more recently, I saw some pileus clouds atop some distant showers. Seemed liked a promising sign of storminess to come.
I then drove out west of Charleston and looked over the marshland along U.S. 17 while waiting for a line of thunderstorms to roll into the area.
I caught a few lightning bolts in the distance, but I had just removed my lens to switched it out when lightning struck directly nearby and directly in front of me. And of course, I missed it.
This system actually got better organized as it moved over me. A shelf cloud began forming overhead.
I followed the storm eastward to the Ravenel Bridge, under which I took shelter and tried to snap a few shots. Nothing special.
