Pictures

Norman, Oklahoma | October 14th 2023:

Solar eclipses are cool. National Weather Festivals are cool. But both...AT THE SAME TIME?! It was Christmas in October! Check out the 'community outreach' tab to get a taste of what the festival was like. Below, check out some pics of a ~75% eclipse coverage, which mainly consists of the beautiful crescents in the shadows. I'll be visiting friends that live near Dallas for the April 2024 one in attempts to experience totality for the second time (for once, please stay away, storms). You can scroll down this page to 2017 if you wanna check out my GoPro footage of the eclipse totality that happened back then!

Norman, Oklahoma | October 4th 2023:

Nothing like working in a cozy coffee shop while a 56 mph storm blows through. Featuring unfazed Oklahomans:

Norman, Oklahoma | September 23rd 2023:

Look at me, posting here every few days :o That’s how you know fall is right around the corner! And wow, is it coming in with a bang. To see what I quite literally mean, take a look at the lovely view of this supercell that occurred this past weekend that I captured along with many other Normanites. Nothing short of incredible.

Norman, Oklahoma | September 19th 2023:

Grabbed a couple of nice anvil crawlers before a hail-fueled storm came through! Luckily the hail threat decreased literally right as it came into the area, and I personally did not see or hear any though it was still reported in some parts.

Norman, Oklahoma | September 5th 2023:

I'll always be a Cali girl at heart, but nothing beats these post-storm Oklahoma sunsets.

Norman, Oklahoma | August 11th 2023:

Despite living in literal global warming, here's a few pretty cloud and sunset pictures that I was able to capture over the last couple of months.

University of Oklahoma: Asp Garage, Norman, Oklahoma | June 15th & 17th 2023:

Y'know what, I'm not even going say anything. I'll just let what I think is my best storm photography to date do the talking. Honestly still in shock I captured the lightning shots I did:

Edit: Regarding the June 17th storm, the main hazard was winds up to 70 mph, and that forecast checked out quite well. The first two pictures are the storm drawing nearer, the second of which you can see a power flash in the distance. That was my cue to book it inside the building part of the garage. It lasted about 10 minutes and the Mesonet ended up recording a peak of 62 mph when all was said and done. I don't even know how to explain how strong the outflow was just from the howling outside, but here's more pictures of quite a bit of tree damage that night and the following day to get an idea. And the winds blew the loose tailight cover off my poor car Olive :((( (but I retrieved it)! P.S. one day I'll figure out how to do figure captions in an organized way to more easily explain the pictures. Until then, bear with me please :S

University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma | June 8th 2023:

We've had a lot of pop-up convection in the area the last couple of days leading to a couple of short-lived but hefty storms. I wasn't expecting to see some really nice mammatus on my evening walk around campus. It's been a goal of mine to get a mammatus shot of the clock-tower, so I'm super happy! Next goal is to get it with the orangish pink glow of the sunset.

All over Colorado and West Texas Panhandle | May 28th-June 1st 2023:

I went on a hiking trip with my mom in Colorado for a few days, and we ended up seeing some gorgeous storms fire up in the distance several. Below are some pictures of those; I can't get over how beautiful the towering cumulonimbus on the other side of the mountain was (this was around the Marsh Quarry near Cañon City). There actually ended up being a few small tornadoes to our east near Lamar, CO, so the environment was definitely more primed than initially forecasted. Overall, it was a great trip! The president passed by us when we were in Colorado Springs dropping our rental car back off..being escorted by several police cars, motorcycles, ambulances(?), and SWAT team vehicles. Traffic was stopped and we were very confused until we saw the news. Also, we brought a friendly abandoned/escaped dog in the road safely to the animal humane society in Cañon City. Anyway. I had driven out to Colorado and I made a pitstop through Pueblo on the way back at the NWS office there, which was an awesome end to my Colorado adeventures this time :D

Buuuut that doesn't mean the trip for me was over yet. Because as it turned out, there was a good chance of severe weather for the following day on the route through Lubbock, TX I was taking. The lack of low-level shear decreased the tornado chances, and the storms were not going to stay discrete long before becoming a squall line, but I decided to stay overnight and meander around the area before heading all the way back to Norman. And I'm so glad I did! Here's some pictures of what ended up being a very hail-filled storms, which showcased the beautiful white-ish green tint. In the first two pictures, I thought for sure I was seeing a tornado, but it was never reported so it was either a gustnado or outflow-driven dust (given that other pictures show obvious instances of outflow with way more dust kicked up, I think this one heirs on the side of a gustado). After a while, the storms became linear, and the initial plan was to stay ahead of the squall line, but I really wanted to see the mammatus on the back side of the storm. Well, I certainly did, and they rivaled the ones from last year when I saw my first tornado. So mesmorizing. The best part is FOR ONCE I HAD MY DSLR. But pictures honestly don't do it justice anyway. However, as you might've guessed, the decision to be on the backside of a slow-moving squall line made it take FOREVER to get home. But I'm still glad I did it and happily slept like a baby when I finally got back to Norman. All in all, this was an amazing vacation. Let's see what the last bit of spring brings!

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma | May 12th 2023:

More notable convection and later storms firing up in and around Oklahoma City following the active weather just yesterday. Couldn't catch the jaw-dropping mammatus yesterday, but I got some today! And in the other direction, some beautiful cumulonimbus exploding :D

Norman, Oklahoma | May 11th 2023:

Welp, I unexpectedly saw a tornado today. Now, many of us at the NWC have been monitoring this system for a few days and were debating about chasing if the conditions looked right. And when the SPC issued a 10% hatched TOR risk right smack-dab in the middle of Norman (pictured below), the mindset began shifting to concern for pets and housing. After the February EF2 tornado, and the wedge neaar Cole, OK a few weeks ago, Norman has had way too many scares this year to not ensure our severe weather plans were in place. Also, the low wind shear in the environment near the top of the storms meant high-precipitation (HP) supercells were more likely, and the chances of seeing tornadoes from these kind of stroms are slim-to-none anyway. So most of us remained in the Norman area, but I still decided to go to the OU Asp garage roof a couple hours before sunset when initiation time was set to try for structure and/or mammatus pictures. This, and the observation desk at NWC are great places to get pictures from high up while still having shelter nearby. After a while, there were a few storms west of my location, and I was getting a better view of them than expected. One of them to the southwest had some tight coupling on radar, and I could just barely make out a funnel from the exact area this was happening (second picture). It didn't touch down, but not only was I already getting adequate supercell pictures like I had hoped, but I even got a funnel picture. It receded quickly, but this was good enough for me.

However, after about another 20 minutes, one of the other storms I was watching (there were quite a few to pick from) developed into the classic hook echo shape and some lowering started happening. This wasn't like the funnel I saw previously, this was a big boi. I was watching a legit tornado form that was at least more than halfway to the ground. The radar image of this is the third picture, and the actual tornado was the fourth and fifth pictures below. This only lasted about 30 seconds before it diminished. Now, I didn't think it touched the ground, but it was listed as an "observed" tornado from Radarscope. I still had my doubts, but when I checked later, there was an official local storm report from the SPC on it. It could've been one of three brief tornadoes in and around Grady county, but I belive this tornado was south-southeast of Tuttle, OK. All this was from OU campus! Obviously these pictures are not high quality quality, but I saw way more than what I expected for an HP supercell prediction. I also got somewhat of a nice sunset shot of the supercell as it started falling apart (last pic), but it was time to head to shelter as some more tornado-warned storms to the southwest were headed straight for my area. Unfortunately, Cole, OK did get hit by another tornado from these storms and there was some structural damage. This is always saddening to me, and seeing the most beautiful, photogenic tornado in the entire world would not be worth it if it destroys someone else's life. I hope those impacted by these tornadoes are able to bounce back sooner than later.

Norman, Oklahoma | April 19th 2023:

We had a notable severe weather day in central Oklahoma, and models were looking pretty concerning for the Norman area. After the town got hit by an EF2 in February, no one was taking any chances with preparation. There was a meeting for all graduate students scheduled that night, so it was held in one of the NWC rooms that was below ground level.

The room is huge, which ended up being very useful for all the cute pets that needed shelter too! Thankfully, nothing hit Norman directly, but there were a couple of very close calls. These storms were veering off in unpredictable directions, and you can get a taste of that in the radar video below. What you're seeing there is a wedge tornado that unfortuntaly had just hit Cole, OK and claimed three lives. It's a double-sided sword to love studying these forces of nature, but never at the cost of someone else's life. This is also around the time three OU students tragically passed away last year after storm chasing. My thoughts are with anyone who has experienced tornado-related tragedies, be it through losing loved ones or losing homes. Though I study the boundary layer and not tornadoes directly, I hope what I'm doing does end up contributing to improving our knowledge of the atmosphere. Sure, it's fascinating, but it's also so very necessary. I'll end with pointing out one of the radar captures from the storm as the last picture. I've never seen that defined of a hook echo...that looks like a something straight out of a textbook. Stay safe, weather friends.

Norman, Oklahoma | April 10th 2023:

I've been going to one of the garage roofs at OU lately for some good sunset pictures (see post below!) and there was a nice cell to the north that produced beautiful lightning with the campus in the foreground. Here's just a few pictures of it!

Norman, Oklahoma | April 10th 2023:

It's been too long since there's been a sunset appreciation. The first one is my favorite, and one of the most beautiful I've ever seen! Many of these other ones are from the roof of University of Oklahoma's Asp garage:

Florence, Montana | September 23rd 2022:

I took a trip with my mom to the hot springs at Salmon-Challis National Forest. It was amazing, and I had a blast! But that was not the extent of the good times: the mountains in the area produced lenticular clouds, gravity waves, and many other beautiful cloud formations. I particularly never have seen lenticular clouds like this before. Here they are below!

Central Plains, U.S. (TORUS highlights) | May 31st - June 18th 2022:

I am currently apart of the 2022 TORUS campaign aimed at collecting data to better understand supercells in the Central U.S. I will go more into detail about my experience in the TORUS section in the fieldwork tab when the campaign wraps up. Edit: All the pics are now added to that TORUS tab!

Wayne, Oklahoma | May 4th 2022:

Yeah...you could say it was an active week! Here's a tornado-warned cell near Wayne, OK. I'm glad this one didn't produce a tornado since you can see the town right beneath where it would have been.

Oklahoma | May 2nd 2022:

Oh. My. Vorticity. What a DAY. After spending pretty much most my life being fascinated by these forces of nature, I have finally seen my first (and second) tornado! Both came from the same supercell near Loyal, OK, and it had indescribaly amazing structure. The first was a multi-vortex one at that. We were a little far visually, but I'm honestly a-okay with that, especially if it means missing the chaser traffic.

My friends and I drove north from OU at about 2:15 pm which was super late, but, hey, class has gotta come first. We saw the tornadoes, then headed back home to beat the line of storms coming towards Norman. There may have been a couple...let's just say "muddy" situations, but otherwise, it was an incredible day. I finally have my own tornado story, which is made even better by the fact that both were later classified as EFU due to lack of damage, which is always great news! We got back to OU only to come face-to-face with another tornado-warned storm, so we went to the parking garage roof to get a good view. Nothing screams "I live in the Plains" quite like that last sentence. We also had a nice visual of the shelf cloud from the line of storms just a head turn around. The tornado threat eventually went away and was replaced by hail concerns so we jumped back in the car and headed back in the garage. I believe some parts of Norman did get some hail but we managed to dodge it, so once the storms passed my friends said our goodbyes and that was the end of that expedition. Or was it..? Nope! The whole town was greeted by a beautiful mammatus sunset and anvil crawlers :D

The only sucky part was I forgot to pack my Canon and missed out on getting some pretty legendary shots of everything, but oh well. Beggars can't be choosers, right? I'm actually a bit late in uploading all this due to finals and because uploading pictures to this website is unfortunately a pain, but here they are, my best storm chase to date!

Norman, Oklahoma | April 1st 2022:

Lovely asperitas clouds along with virga today.

Near Lamont, Oklahoma | January 14th 2022:

These photos were taken right before an epic cold front came through that same night. Thanks to the shifting winds, there were interesting cloud formations during the day while the weather was stable, including some really nice gravity waves. But what made Arianna the most happy? Seeing and recording discrete Kelvin-Helmholtz waves for the very first time!!! They're small here, but beautiful, and I'm thankful to the bright cloud behind them for offering a nice contrast - might have missed them otherwise! There's a picture below in my December 2021 sunset compilation that may also be it (the one with the Norman water tower), but they might also be tiny mammatus. On this day, one of my project collaborators, Dr. Sonia Wharton, and I visited the Atmospheric Radiation Measurements (ARM) site in Lamont, Oklahoma and I was able to spontaneously launch one of their scheduled radiosondes when we walked by. You can see this in the last photo, and I'm glad I went with the skinny jeans and boots to wear because they make me look taller lol. All in all, an awesome day.

Norman, Oklahoma | January 2022:

Look at how pretty the snowflakes are!!! I always forget how small snowflakes actually are; despite a little blurriness my phone camera did a pretty good job picking them up. And then check out the video that night where the snow was light, but it got a lot breezier. A friend and I were driving through it, and the lights of passing cars illuminated the snows blowing across the streets - the rippling looks like an ocean! I'm sorry, I'm such a fan girl xD

Norman, Oklahoma | December 2021:

Welcome to my sunset compilation for 2021! I'm clearly addicted to taking pictures of sunsets (or objects in the path of said sunsets), so I figured it would be easier just to combine it as one post and avoid making this page unnecessarily long to scroll through :D

Norman, Oklahoma | December 2021:

Just a grown adult playing in some rather strong eddies. Nothing weird here. Note: I was told the 10 second mark is kind of a jumpscare, so sorry about that!

O'ahu, Hawaii | October 2021:

My mom and I took a wonderful vacation to the main island of Hawaii! It was as gorgeous as you'd imagine, and the pictures below show some of the scenic views we witnessed. They show mostly calm, serene conditions, but we did get rain on while we were snorkling! I had to add a picture of the The Weather Channel forecast because I found it hilarious.

Near Lubbock, Texas | April and May 2021:

Managed to squeeze in a couple of storm chases during the spring. Look at how breathtaking the mammatus were! This was the most memorable chase because we were able to see a funnel for a few seconds before it dissipated. This happened too quickly to get a picture of it, but we saw a wall cloud from far away too (second-to-last picture). Unfortuntaly, I missed the famous April 23rd day (I'M NOT BITTER), but I plan to be in Oklahoma a while, so I'm sure many more opportunities are on the horizon! Besides, what's most important is for there to be as few casualties from storms like these as possible :D Check out the video for a nice roll cloud from this day!

Norman, Oklahoma | January 2021:

We got snow to kickstart the new year! Almost 5 inches of fluffy cold goodness.

Lake Thunderbird, Oklahoma | November 2020:

If you couldn't tell from my previous picture, I'm very much a sunset gal. I found my happy place that I'll come to when I inevitably succumb to the pressures of grad school. A sunset on the lake can make anyone feel better.

Norman, Oklahoma | October 2020:

Yikes...we got a pretty cray cray ice storm that directly hit Norman, causing power outages almost everywhere. Here's some of the aftermath.

Stafford, Virginia | Spring, 2020

Both these picture were taken at different times during the spring. The first is probably the pinkest sunset I've ever seen, and the second is from a passing storm...which looks like it produced tornado-shaped lightning. I hereby dub this phenonema the Jordan lightnado!

Norman, Oklahoma | Summer, 2019

Finally back in Oklahoma where I got to study at the National Severe Storms Lab, and gain hands-on experience for my master's thesis. In addition, Oklahoma is the only place to date I've ever seen a mammatus sunset! (And to think they get even more structured than this).

Rocky Mountains, Colorado | August, 2018

Possibly one of my favorite pictures I've ever taken is this first shot of the Milky Way when I visited Rocky Mountain National Park! I used my Canon 6D and a really long exposure time capture it - I can't remember the settings off the top of my head, but I will update when I find out!

Utah | August, 2018

So this was taken near the beginning of my roadtrip from California to the Washington D.C./Virginia area for grad school (yup, I drove). There were wildfires in the nearby region, which luckily I was able to avoid. It's unfortunate how common they are in this part of the U.S., but the one good thing that came from them was this sunset, which was super red due to the smoke particles in the atmosphere.

Monterey, California | July, 2018

My last California sunset before heading to the East Coast for a master's degree!

Iceland | January 2nd-9th, 2018:

I studied abroad in Iceland during the winter of my senior year in undergrad. Here's all the great weather/scenic moments I captured while there.

San Luis Obispo, California | October 29th, 2017:

Waking up to some fog in the mountains during a much needed camping trip in Cali.

Newport, Oregon | August 23rd, 2017:

This is a timelapse taken by my GoPro of 2017's solar eclipse. It was incredible, and the video doesn't do it justice, but it does capture how quickly clouds formed with dropping temperatures over the pan of just a few minutes. See more about my role in the research done for this event in the Research and Class Projects tab!

Washington, D.C. | July, 2017

Why ON EARTH did I not just walk all the way to the middle of the walkway...it's just barely not the ideal Capitol picture! Oh weeeeell, I'm still quite proud of this rainbow shot as were others in the area :D

Various locations | July, 2017:

My second time storm chasing around some tornado-warned storms (again with Dr. Bill McCaul). No tornadoes again, but still was lucky enough to get some amazing shots shown below.

Huntsville, Alabama | August 2017:

As it turns out, Huntsville had a lot of really beautiful sunsets while I was there. So here's a compilation of the many I took pictures of while I was there. If you look closely, you can even see some virga on the last one!

Pontotoc, Mississippi | June 22nd, 2017:

First time storm chasing! During the time of my NASA internship I went with Dr. Bill McCaul to Mississippi in the hope of chasing weak tornadoes from Tropical Cindy's remnants. Nothing fully developed, but I was very happy to capture this distinct funnel that spun for about 10 minutes!