Boom! 6 shots stitched together and about 45 seconds after I took this, the hail started…
I have been getting some questions about this photo I will answer and I also was able to track down the Doppler radar image from this exact moment.
The intersection where this was taken was at Applewood Ln and Wickford Ln in Loves Park, IL.
The lower clouds on the left edge of the storm are ones that, I am told, are the beginnings of a tornado forming. While this storm did not create one, this is where one most likely would have formed.
The eerie green in the middle of the storm is due to the large amounts of hail contained in this storm. Some parts of Illinois saw up 2″ diameter hail!
This photo does have little distortion, as it is a stitched together panorama but not as much as you would think. A shelf cloud normally comes in as straight line formation but this was no ordinary storm. I happened to be at the perfect point to catch this U shaped system as it was coming directly at us. Here are the the original 6 photographs I used to create the final photograph.
As you can see, even without the panorama, the storm was horseshoe shaped.
Here is the Doppler radar from the exact time I took these photographs and you can see the purple horseshoe shaped cloud moving Northeast and I was facing a perfect Southwest.
Right place, right time. Photographs like these are why I enjoy what I do!