Deluge by Peter Coskun Nature Photography

Deluge by Peter Coskun Nature Photography

On Sunday, my girlfriend and I went to chase some storms around Arizona. We were planning on heading south towards Tucson, but we turned around after seeing the road closed off due to an accident. We ventured back northward and veered east as I noticed a large storm cell forming near the city of Globe. We followed it’s path as it was heading towards us and saw some incredible lightning strikes, but by the time we found a place to pull over and set up, the show was over. I noticed another cell that popped up just where we came from, so we turned around and followed it. I noticed there was a huge wall of rain, and that we would have to get on the other side to get anything worth while. The rain was intense, so intense that it seemed every vehicle on the highway had pulled off to the side. When it seemed like it died down a bit, we kept going on until we got on the other side of the storm. Of course, on the other side it didn’t look as good, but I knew it was just going to keep building and building. We finally managed to get to a spot that looked over a vast expanse of desert looking all the way down towards Florence and Phoenix. Towards Florence, the skies were as dark as night, but there was a big gap between this storm and another approaching the valley. I watched the wall of rain as it skirted across photographing it hoping to catch a random strike of lightning in it. Just as the sun began to set, the wall of rain started to light up in orange hues and then it seemed as if the sky just fell to the earth. I’ve seen micro bursts before, but never had photographed one. The heavy winds and rain kicking up dust causing a large dust storm. Not only was I finally getting to photograph one for once, it was happening at sunset. I had hoped to get a strike in the center of the action, and as I kept looking back at the photos I didn’t think I captured one. When I finally got the images on the computer I looked and saw I got one bold almost right down the middle. It wasn’t super bright as most of the strikes were being hidden in the clouds and falling rain, but I was able to notice it. When it seemed like things were about to settle down, the entire valley got slammed with a massive storm and non stop flashes of lightning across the sky. I was pretty excited to get this shot to say the least.

Peter Coskun Nature Photography: Photos