Shelf Cloud Lightning | 29 May 2023 | Stratton, Nebraska to St. Francis, Kansas — Jeremy Perez

Published on May 29, 2023

Another day with meager upper level support. We headed north through Kansas and into southwest Nebraska. It was a long drive and were barely in time to catch a bit of structure on a storm north of Stratton before it was ingested into a southeast-bound cluster of storms.

A bit of short-lived structure northwest of Stratton, Nebraska. 0043Z & 0056Z

The better show waited until after dark. Drifting a bit west, south of Benkelman, Nebraska, gave us a nocturnal view of cg strikes in the mess of surrounding storms.

CG Show near Benkelman, Nebraska. 0311Z & 0313Z

After that, a line of storms seemed to be getting organized in Colorado and we headed down to meet it near St. Francis, Kansas. The advancing line moved in with a beautiful, striated shelf lit by constant, colorful lightning. As it moved in over town, I looked for a spot that had given me some fun shots a few years ago. The grain elevator and surrounding buildings had more glaring lights surrounding them than I remembered. And after a few more shots east of town, we called it off for the night.

Terraced shelf moving in from 6 miles west of St. Francis, Kansas. 0405Z

Stretching off to the north as it moves overhead. 0415Z

Grain silo and elevator on the east side of St. Francis, Kansas. 0435Z

Last look at the gust front from east of McDonald, Kansas. 0520Z

Jeremy Perez

I'm a commercial graphic artist and art director living in Flagstaff, Arizona, USA. I've been photographing monsoon storms and lightning since the eighties. I started chasing severe weather on the Great Plains in 2010. I usually chase solo or with my now adult children. When chasing the Plains, targeting to document a tornado is usually the goal. I'm relieved to say that as hard as that goal is to hit, I'm also captivated by the other sights along the way—the vast horizons, small towns, lightning, storm structure and whatever else gets rolled into that hard-to-reach goal. To date, I've documented 40 tornadoes on 23 storms. Some of them were hazy, mushy views—but a few spectacles stand out and keep me coming back for more: Bowdle, Rozel, Dodge City, Chapman, Ft. Stockton x 2 & Meteor Crater. After plains season each year, the southwest monsoon will be waiting to get started and hopefully opportunities for lightning, haboobs and always hope for a rare landspout.

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