Angry Cloud over Kyoto
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Angry Cloud over Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50mm — 1/1600 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — image data
Angry Cloud
over Kyoto, Japan

As I posted the other day in “Pregnant Cloud Over Kyoto”, we've gotten quite a bit of locally-intense afternoon thunderstorms this summer. I'm not normally here in the summer, so this has come as quite the surprise to me, a pleasing one having grown up enjoying intense thunderstorms in Ohio's hot and humid summers.

京都の夏、午後雷雨が多いですね。好き。

I took these pictures two days before the “pregnant cloud” shot, but I was working intently on my latest Lightroom plugin so didn't have time to post them.

The cell was moving south to north, and behind it to the south it was quite clear...

Clear relatively speaking  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50mm — 1/3200 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — image data
Clear
relatively speaking

Bright fluffy clouds even peeked through the curtain of rain...

Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50mm — 1/4000 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — image data
Four-Shot Panorama  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50mm — 1/1600 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — image data
Four-Shot Panorama

It's not a particular compelling panorama, but I like the effect, so here we are. Here's a bigger version you can scroll from side to side:

Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Localized Cell
— scroll side-to-side — 水平にスクロールしてね —
or click through to an 8,500-pixel-wide version

Here's what the weather radar looked like at the time, with my position being marked by the black square:

Kyoto, Japan

It soon passed...

Just Behind The Cell  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 240mm — 1/3200 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — image data
Just Behind The Cell

All 2 comments so far, oldest first...

I was just listening to the NHK meteorologist explain the other day why there was much more thunder and lightning in Japan this year than other years. Something to do with unstable fronts colliding.

— comment by Zak on September 8th, 2012 at 9:09am JST (11 years, 8 months ago) comment permalink

Awesome shots!
We had a lot of thunderstorms a while ago here in Western Kansai, too!
They came so sudden and just like in your photos you could see them from far away already.

— comment by zoomingjapan on September 8th, 2012 at 10:19am JST (11 years, 8 months ago) comment permalink
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