This Time-Lapse Video Of A Supercell Thunderstorm Forming Is Beautiful And Haunting

Photographer Mike Oblinski spent four years traveling the American west to capture footage of a supercell thunderstorm forming. In the video above, Oblinski captures the formation of a supercell — a type of storm that contains a rotating mass of rising air called a mesocyclone, which can spin off tornadoes — near Booker, Texas.

He writes…

The timelapse was shot on a Canon 5D Mark II with a Rokinon 14mm 2.8 lens. It’s broken up into four parts. One thing to note early on in the first part is the way the rain is coming down on the right and actually being sucked back into the rotation. Amazing.

A few miles south is where part two picks up. And I didn’t realize how fast it was moving south, so part three is just me panning the camera to the left. During that third part you can see dust along the cornfield being pulled into the storm as well…part of the strong inflow. The final part is when the storm had started dying out and we shot lightning as it passed over us.

Enjoy!

(Boing Boing via Digg)