Cloudburst

The title was inspired by a symphonic band piece entitled "Cloudburst" by Eric Whitacre, who in the world of collegiate and high school bands, is on the parallel with individuals like Leonard Berstein and George Gershwin, in terms of compositional clout. Originally written and scored for SATB choral application, it was scored and arranged for wind ensemble later by the composer after he realized its potential for application with winds and percussion. The song imitates a rainstorm through the use of special percussion and wind techniques, and is highly, highly musical. It's bad-ass.

Here, while out shooting at the local race track a few weeks back, some Kansas storms brewed up to the north and northwest of us, and proceed to move east/southeast. This particular cell, seen looking off to the northeast, sits over the northeastern third of Finney County (the county being in the shape of an 'L' rotated 90 degrees clockwise), producing lots of rain, thunder, and lightning. A fitting description given by the piece "Cloudburst" as described above.

Check out the updrafts in this storm; they're absolutely gorgeous. Echo Tops images from the KDDC Nexrad radar indicated top elevations of nearly 45,000 feet, with droplet concentrations in the 1 to 1.5 inch range (i.e. HAIL). Leading-edge wind shear produced a gust front with straight-line winds averaging about 50 mph or greater.

And it's in HDR chewy goodness. ;D

Canon EOS 30D
Canon EF 20-35mm f/3.5-4.5 USM
ISO 200 @ 1/1600, f/3.5
EV: +/- 2 stops (1/1600, 1/400, 1/6400)

HDR rendering in Photomatix, post-editing in Photoshop CS4