The three of us came together in Soest to perform our first real stormchase. Just out of Soest we saw a nice rainbow. With a southwesterly airflow, very unstable maritime polar air was transported towards The Netherlands, so there was a risk of some nice thunderstorms. We stranded near Schiphol (Amsterdam Airport) at a place called Ruigoord. Numerous thundery showers filled the air.
We had great visibilty in this polar airmass. Every time a shower passed brilliant rainbows formed, often showing the secondary rainbow and supernumary bows (even on the secondary rainbow).
The storms themselves were fabulous to look at, showing mammatus and hail curtains. We all were very excited at that moment.
Early in the evening we drove off again to chase a more active thunderstorm.
We ended up in the province of Flevoland, in a polder near a very small village called Nagele. Here we photographed some great discharges, often lighting up the entire stormcloud. After we saw the final discharge we ended the chase and split up again. We were very pleased that our first chase was such a succes! |
