Morning Shelf, NKP 765, More!

For barely being into the month of September, it has been highly eventful already. Beginning with Wednesday the 5th, ongoing overnight storms dropping in from Iowa collapsed into an exceptionally rare photographic opportunity as a series of front lit arcus clouds. Skies are typically overcast in advance of these features resulting in muted greys but not so on this day. I have been wanting to capture this phenomena for a number of years and just like that as I was heading home from work it happened. The images below are teasers with a full post coming later.





Thanks to a generous tip from my friend Dan Robinson, another rare photographic opportunity would occur Thursday in that the Historic 765 NKP Steam Locomotive would be passing through the area. Departing from Decatur and traveling along IL 48 to St. Louis, we set up from between Blue Mound and Stonington for an intercept. This was my first time rail-fanning and now I understand the popularity of this activity. To have it blaze past me full throttle with whistle blowing while getting hosed with soot was one of coolest, most intense experiences yet.






Be sure to check out Dan's post with high quality video from this event HERE.

On Friday we were under a slight risk for severe weather and although the most significant activity occurred everywhere else but here, another morning arcus bearing a more typical appearance versus that of Wednesday rolled through.





Marginally severe new cells in the afternoon would interact with the remnants of this boundary and produce briefly ominous base structure between here and Springfield before gusting out into little more than a heavy rain storm.

Edited phone pic, it looked much better before I was able to stop.


DSLR's