My favorite time of the year...

Well Spring is coming and here in the Midwest it has to be one of my favorite seasons. In the plains states, especially here in tornado alley we have some really beautiful storms and you can see them roll in and then out. You can smell the dirt that the storms are kicking up in front of them right before the storm hits but the strangest thing is the absolute calm that is right before it hits. Basically what happens is that as the storm moves in all the birds, frogs, crickets and what ever else makes noise gets out of the way. You will also find all the cows huddled together and laying down.

I have taken some really good pictures in the past but since the digital camera is not an SLR it is hard to get sequential shots like I would like. While I would love an SLR digital camera they are more then I really would like to spend and since I do not take a lot of action shots there is really no reason.

I did however buy a middle of the road mini-DV camera for taking home movies for things like birthdays & Christmas. I figure with that I should be able to get some good footage of this years storms and then pull stills with the editing software. Hopefully we will have some nice shots to put up this year.

Tonight we had a small storm pop up out and then go as quick as it came. While we got a few good claps of thunder from it the rainbow it left behind was very cool. Since it happened as the sun was setting it was across the entire sky and very low to the ground. I have only seen one like that a few times.

In the next few weeks we should see a huge increase in severe weather and then through April/May some really great storms. I hope to get some good shots but there is the need to stay safe versus the want to take pictures. It is kind of funny, my wife studied atmospheric science, we always here the warnings to get someplace safe etc... and it is not just us it is everyone in the area. They have public service ads on TV and radio letting us all know how to stay safe yet the first thing that happens when a storm rolls in is that you find everyone out on their back decks checking it out. Kind of funny actually, of course then the storm rolls through and everyone is back out side surveying the damage.