A photo slide show and reportage document are now available to view and download in the Downloads section.

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Well back in the UK now, the trip ended with a bang, and that’s an understatement. A monsoon lightning spectacle and some stunning footage captured. Will endeavour to populate the gallery this week as bodies recovers from the 8 flights, 3 time zones and mad adventure that it turned into.

Some stunning images in the 000’s taken I can confirm. A tease….

Keep checking the site for updates.

Another amazing day in the tropics. Thats what it feels like here.  Like living and breathing in a sauna. Amazingly hot and humid. Very testing for camera equipment. Captured some great storms today including sitting right in the middle of a storm that was throwing out precip and 50 kt winds. Just like being stuck in a hurricane. Also sat out a similar storm on the beach under umbrella, quite surreal. Little lightning today but action packed stuff.

Currently just outside Tampa Bay. Flight back to Arizona tomorrow morning where there is an extreme heat warning in place. Temps of 120F prog’d. It just does not stop. Phew. Camera system once agin pushed to limits in extreme heat, moisture and water. Very pleased with its all round performance (again).

Next stop Arizona and pics too soon. Suitcase load to process.

Its mad down here.  Apologies for the lack of image updates. We have been that so busy and taken so much footage that its hard keeping up! After a very early sunrise start and watching storms initiate before breakfast and continue right through sundown we are both exhausted. The two flights and move from Arizona was a wise one.  Storms galore here in Florida. It is also an awful place for chasing. Too much traffic and very few places with good  visibility.  However, we have had a fruitful day.

Got some stunning footage this morning of severe storms building, maturing and some great lightning.  This afternoon Al and I spent 2 hours camped on a deserted beach under big umbrellas, rain lashing down, thunder, lightning everything. Very dangerous but great footage.  The yocals thought we were nuts! Brilliant it was.

We are both shattered though. Up at sunrise and shooting all day and through night. Few hrs sleep each night. we would’nt have it any other way mind. Photo updates when we get a spare minute. What a trip!

Good forecast again for tomorrow.

Mark/Al

Al and I are on our way to Florida. We are due to arrive in Tampa Tues aft. The forecast for the next few days is positive for waterspouts in the morning and inland storms in the afternoon/evening. A busy few days ahead before we return back to Arizona.

Upadates and images later (hopefully).

Mark/Al

Well today was pretty amazing and total upturn in luck. We had treated it as a down day and headed off early north through Phoenix and onto Flagstaff with a view to seeing the stunning scenery in this vicinity and in the hope that the elevated landscape may give us a cloud or two. As we approached Flagstaff at around midday we saw convective clouds on the horizon. Befeore soon it was discharging lightning. We set off in pursuit and were treated to an unexpected treat of a monsoon storm with lots of cloud to ground lightning. The precipitation core was spectacular. Al and I captured it all on time lapse. The daytime lightning was stunning to see. Recorded temps on the way (with my weather station) were in excess of 110 F. Wow!

After a brief lunch we headed to Sedona National Park to see the spectacular Red Rock Canyon. This is where the adventure now takes another twist. Arizona monsoon has effectively now shut down for the rest of the week. However, we have been made aware that Florida is alive with storms at the moment and the next few days could produce waterspouts and lots of electrical storms.After a logistical mad few hours on the internet we have managed to book a domestic flight.  We will be flying into Tampa first thing tomorrow morning. Boy what an adventure. Keep checking for updates on our Florida progress, before returning to Arizona on Friday evening for a last flirt with the returning monsoon moisture?

Todays Images should be in gallery soon.

Mark/Al

Not a good day. The remains of Huricane Dolly are widely affecting weather patterns across the USA. The original westerly track (across Mexico) has gone pear shaped and Dolly is now moving north east through Texas. This has crashed all the moisture in Arizona and what was looking a very active stormy monsoon week has now evolved into the complete opposite. High temps, low dewpoints, lots of dry air and no storms.

On the positive side we already have captured some great mosoon footage and we are now planning to experience extreme heat as we head north into Phoenix (and beyond) and the spectacular national parks in the vicinity. You may have heard about the story of frying eggs on a road, well watch this space. Breakfast is on us….coming soon.

Photos from day in gallery soon.

Mark/Al

A pretty lively day to say the least. Al and I headed south from Tucson towards the Mexican border. Here we really experienced some great monsoon almost tropical storms which unleashed vast amounts of precipitation. Most of the roads in these areas carry signs informing drivers not to pass when flooded…I can see why! The precip was unbelievably intense and hardly moving. Typical flash flooding material.

We meandered back towards Tucso throughout the day stopping for the odd photo shoot when storms and events arose. We also drone through the beautiful Saguaro National Park which is littered with of cactii and is so photogenic, especially with storms kicking off in the background.

We then the headed up to the top of a local mountain call ‘A’ which gave a view of Tucson to die for. 180 field of view. We even saw a small haboob or dust storm at the end of the day rolling across Tucson.

Here area few select photos:-

Monsoon storm taken from Saguaro National Park (full of great cactii)

Monsoon storm 50km south of Tucson, Arizona. Intense precip.

Here is a time lapse taken from a number of shoot locations.  Storm building, monsoon rains, cactus park & Tucson sundown.

What a start to the trip!  After a gruelling 2 flights, 2 time zone changes and almost 24 hrs of travel we have arrived at Tucson, Arizona. Its hot, very hot (96 F) and humid too! It feels tropical. Dolly is certainly doing her thing, the skies are filled with storms as we drove off from the airport.  Ligntning was filling the spectacular mountain filled horizon. Very little thunder, but seamless cloud to ground spectacular lightning. This is going to be some trip.

Flash flood warnings have been issued and constanly fill the local radio airwaves as we drove to the hotel to check in. Staying in avery nice Holiday Inn Suites at Oro Valley, right at the foot of the Catalina hills. Very nice indeed. Al and I droped all our luggage real quick, grabbed all the camera gear and headed off to the hills in the west of towm hoping to get look down on the lightning display. We were both exhausted but decide to have a quick gander and see if we could get any footage. We were not disappointed.  A few Pictures in the gallery.

Another good day in the offering for tomorrow.

Mark

View over Texas approaching Dallas. Nice Cu streets.

Spectacular Tucson lightning over Catalina hills.

We could not have wrote the script. Hurricane Dolly (Cat 2) has recently made landfall on the north Mexico coastline. Over the next few days it will continue heading west (as a tropical storm) and flirt with the US/Arizona. What does this mean for the North American Monsoon? Well this coming weekend Dolly will drag copious amounts of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and which will channel, via the Sierra Madre mountains, into Arizona. Dew points are currently rising fast and the NWS area forecast discussions are very concerned about risks for flooding and strong thunderstorms

We are expecting lots of exciting thunderstorms, dust storms and spectacular lightning upon our arrival (Friday).  As I said……couldn’t have wrote the script.

Keep watching for updates as it looks like a fabulous week ahead. Al & I will upload images and vids as soon as we can.

Mark/Al