Weather and Sky Photos by Paul L Meisel

I enjoy the challenge of photographing lightning during the daytime. This shot is from a storm over 25 miles away. The evening light gives the clouds a nice purple color. Ward County, North Dakota.

This is a total solar eclipse photographed near Williston, North Dakota on February 26, 1979. It was one of the most amazing events I have ever experienced.

Parhelia, commonly known as Sundogs, occur when sunlight is refracted by small ice crystals in the sky. Parhelia are typically seen as an arc 22 degrees from the sun.

The evening sky reflected on the polished aluminum skin of my Cessna 120. I miss that airplane.

There is no severe weather in this image, but I love the color of the clouds. After sunset the twilight sky often takes on very brilliant colors. Ward County, North Dakota

This image shows a very well developed Wall Cloud and lightning from a large Supercell storm over Lake Sakakawea in central ND. A Wall Cloud is a "foot like" formation which may sometimes protrude below the cloud base on a large storm. It is from the Wall Cloud that funnels usually develop. This storm produced a great deal of hail and rain but no funnel clouds were reported. This was one of several supercell thunderstorms which hit North Dakota on June 9, 2001. While this storm was developing, another storm hit Bismarck, 50 miles to the south, and caused over 200 million dollars in damage.

The early morning sun shines through the remains of a dying thunderstorm. Southern Ward County, North Dakota.

Lightning is always dangerous and in a typical year kills many more people than tornadoes. A lightning bolt can easily travel six miles or more from a cloud, so when you can hear thunder it is generally a good idea to take shelter inside a building or metal roofed vehicle. A convertible, even with the top up, offers no protection from lighting. This lightning bolt is from a very severe storm which occured near Max, North Dakota.

Multiple lightning bolts from a very strong Supercell storm south of Velva, North Dakota.

A small rain shower and rainbow over fields of canola. Ward County, North Dakota.

A typical view of night lightning.

A biplane doing a barrel roll into the sunset.

I was returning home from an unsuccessful storm chase when I captured this image of a single tree silhouetted against the evening sky near Voltaire, North Dakota.

A typical North Dakota sunrise.

Cumulus clouds from a rapidly building thunderstorm near Glenburn, North Dakota.

This is a very large Supercell thunderstorm located over 100 miles away, east of Carrington, ND. The bulging cloud above the anvil head indicates that this storm has extremely strong updrafts. This storm produced several tornadoes.

Mammatus clouds are often seen in thunderstorms. Many people hold the mistaken belief that tornadoes develop from Mammatus clouds.

There is no severe weather in this photo but I have posted it anyway because I think it is very, very cool. In this photo three F-100D Super Sabres from the Georgia Air National Guard (116th Fighter Wing) are making a very low level, very high speed, pass over a hill top in Sioux County, North Dakota. September, 1975.

This is a Shelf Cloud. It indicates strong outflow winds from an approaching thunderstorm.

This is a view of the same Shelf Cloud as seen in the previous image, looking in the opposite direction after the cloud has passed.

Tornado, southern Ward County, ND. In this image the funnel cloud does not extend all of the way to the ground, however dust and debris being picked up at ground level indicates that this is a tornado.

This is a very thin, rope like tornado photographed on the south side of Minot, North Dakota. This is a tornado which developed from a Non-Supercell thunderstorm. Sometimes called Landspouts, Non-Supercell Tornadoes are fairly common on the Northern Great Plains.

This is a photo of a small funnel with several protuberances which were rapidly rotating around the central funnel.

This is a photograph of a rapidly rotating Wall Cloud at the base of a small Supercell storm east of Max, North Dakota. Earlier in this storm's life it produced at least one tornado. In this image a small funnel is starting to form on the right side of the Wall Cloud. After shooting this image I drove south a couple miles and let this storm pass me at a safe distance.

This is the same storm as in the previous image, taken about five minutes later as the storm was moving away from me. A double funnel had developed, but quickly dissipated not long after this photograph was taken.

I photographed this nice example of a Dust Devil in the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico.

Saint James Catholic Church. Porcupine Village, Standing Rock Indian Reservation. Sioux County, North Dakota. I liked how the sky and church interact in this image.

Although difficult to see, this image shows Anti-Crepuscular Rays. Anti-Crepuscular rays appear to converge at a point on the horizon opposite the sun. The rays are actually parallel however perspective causes them to appear to converge. Anti-Crepuscular rays are actually fairly common however few people ever notice them. They are most often seen at sunrise or sunset.

There is nothng severe about this image, it is just a nice sky shot over an old farmstead in southeastern Wyoming.

This is a small but severe storm. There is strong rotation on the left side of this storm, and it is developing a small wall cloud. July 5, 2005 near Tioga, North Dakota.

The storm has now produced a small funnel. The funnel did not touch down, and shortly after this photo was taken the storm collapsed.

A very pretty evening rain shower.

This is a supercell thunderstorm seen from about 35 miles away. The white streaks between the cloud and ground indicate that a great deal of hail is falling. Hail Shafts are often seen in severe thunderstorms.

This is a supercell thunderstorm as viewed from a distance of about 125 miles. The high altitude wind is blowing the anvil head directly away from the viewing location, resulting in a "mushroom cloud" appearance. The lower ten thousand feet or so of this storm is obscured by the Earth's shadow.

Although no funnel cloud is present, this is a photograph of a tornado.This storm occurred on June 11, 2000 and was one of a series of small tornado producing storms which tracked across North Dakota on that date. I followed this storm as it traveled eastward from it's formation southwest of Minot until it reached the Norwich area, a distance of about 20 miles.

When I shot this image the storm was churning up mud from an open field. Although difficult to see, there are two vortices in this photo. The one on the right seemed to be in the center of the tornado and the vortice on the left was rapidly rotating around the other in a counter clockwise direction. At the time that I took this photo there was no funnel or Wall Cloud visible in the storm. The only indication that a tornado was present was the mud being blown around a ground level. Several minutes after this photo was shot I lost sight of the tornado as when rain which was being wrapped around from the north side of the cell obscured my view.

Tornado, Ward County, North Dakota. This tornado occured over open country and did not cause any significant damage. In this photo the funnel cloud did not quite reach the ground however there was rotating debris at ground level indicating that this was a tornado.

This is a very large and strong supercell thunderstorm. The large amount of cloud showing above the top of the anvil head formation indicated very strong updrafts.

This is an image of a rotating column of dust and debris created by strong wind at the leading edge of a storm. I estimate that it was about four or five miles away from me when a took the photograph, with the rotating dust field being between 1/4 and 1/2 mile in diameter. This rotating dust cloud continued to travel at the leading edge of the storm for at least 10 miles and at times the dust column reached many hundreds of feet in height. I have often seen these dust vortices on the front of storms, but none this large. They are NOT tornadoes however people often mistakenly report them as tornadoes. Some storm chasers refer to these leading edge vortices as "gustnadoes." This one was photographed south of Minot on June 3, 2006.

I enjoy the challenge of photographing lightning during the daytime. This shot is from a storm over 25 miles away. The evening light gives the clouds a nice purple color. Ward County, North Dakota.

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