Storms over the Green Volcanic Grasslands
Capulin, NM: 3 Jun 2007
With the flow aloft weakening over the southern Plains and a couple of rather benign days in the forecast for decent supercell potential, Elke and I decided to leave Dalhart and head for some R&R at her mom’s place outside of Denver. Along the way, near Capulin NM, we were treated to a splendidly textured convective sky, thanks to the usual early-afternoon eruption of storms along the Raton Mesa and Cimarron Canyon areas.
We’ve long admired the beauty of the northeast New Mexico grasslands, especially in a wet year such as this when the volcano-studded carpeting seems to saturate itself with rich color and texture. To put some high-based storms over that grand landscape added to its already alluring visual mystique, with a wonderful interplay of light and shadow amongst the hills and flatlands. In addition to the shot above, which exemplified this as well as any two-dimensional image can, we’ll also share a wide angle convective shot and one of several faint lightning strikes that I managed to capture.
We had been up on Capulin’s peak, but once the convection started to erupt in earnest, we got down in a hurry. The photos were shot from a lava plateau on the SW flank of the volcanic cone, looking S through SW.