May 3rd 2011 - Storm with shelf cloud in SE-Slovenia

Another weak front passed us today. Only marginal CAPE with weak deep layer shear was present, but the front provided enough lift for some semi-serious storms to form. I got a nice view of a shallow shelf cloud in the vicinity of my home. It was really a multi-cellular mess. Only this storm showed some signs of organization, everything else was just not worth looking at. Some nearby cells really killed the action on the cell I photographed. It was soon digesting downdrafts from other cells and died soon after that.

Yeah, we've seen better but given that the season sucks so far and it's still early May, I'll take this one.

Wall cloud of the first cell of the day that did not produce anything.

Distant wall cloud.

Forming shelf cloud approaching.

Funky looking tornado-like structure. Nothing serious.

Probably the best look of the storm I got.

Wall cloud with the shelf above.

Top 3 images of 2010

Still suffering from severe supercell deprivation syndrome (SDS) and it's getting worse. Still winter but I guess april isn't too far away. Storm season in Europe usually doesn't start until late april, early may, when the first storms start to fire (we don't have the Gulf ... :( ). We can get first severe storms as late as June, when the storm season in the USA is already in full swing!

So here I'm offering my top 3 photos of 2010.

Supercell and lightning from Medvedje Brdo, Slovenia.

Front passing and morning shelf cloud from Medvedje Brdo, Slovenia.

HP supercell with shelf cloud near Portogruaro, Italy

Honorable mention:

Rotating mesocyclone, large hailer near Trebnje, Slovenia.

July 23rd 2010 - HP supercell near Portogruaro, Italy

Nice LVL2 outlook was ahead of us. Friend and I decided to chase in Italy, FVG region. The only region that made sense to chase. We got off the highway before Portogruaro for Varmo and Cordoiso. The outlook was bad, no initiation, was afraid that it will result in a bust. Nothing interesting was happening but then suddenly ... a storm! Crazy driving to get ahead of it to intercept but we were too late. Got some photos but the storm was too fast. It ran us over very quickly, especially with the bad roads. Wet microburst with winds over 100 km/h, fortunately no hail. This storm dropped a rain-wrapped tornado somewhere along the way so were kinda lucky. Once the wind was strong and with strong rain there is nothing you can do. Especially with people driving 20 km/h. Obviously there were not in a hurry to get out of there. Before the storm caught us we got a look at a nice wall cloud which was rotating nicely. The storm made quite a bit of damage, there was a lot of broken trees on the roads.

May 24th 2009 - Passing storm

May 3rd 2009 - Shelf cloud

Surprising shelf cloud from a really crappy storm. Conditions weren't good at all, so I was at home all the time, but this was quite surprising! Solid winds on the ground but nothing spectacular.