Stunning photographs were sent to me by a friend. I have no other details about place or date, but I’ve saved them to a directory. (originally they thought there were in Ontario, but commentors advise the photos have been attributed to various locales)
The rest are here
You can see more of the photographer’s work by following the links. Amazing stuff…
http://www.snopes.com/photos/natural/storm.asp
Wow!! Great work!
Awesome pix! Simply awesome!
I’ve seen these pictures before, and I am sure they are not from Ontario….I was told they were from Saskatchewan, but that could have been misleading as well.
They are spectacular none the less!!
Correct me if I’m wrong but in image 4, does that look like MW-W in those clouds?
“I’ll get you my pretty Kate, and your dog, Toto too.”
Sorry, couldn’t resist….
Great pics BTW.
Actually, they look very similar to the photographs that came out of Southern Alberta back in June when we got the floods there.
Still look awesome, though — doesn’t matter where they’re from.
The pics are awesome, and have been making the round of the Internet for months now. Some say they are taken in Alberta, Saskatchewan and now Ontario. I don’t think anyone knows for certain where they were taken.
I first saw these pics in July(?) when someone e-mailed them to me after a vicious storm in Calgary.
wow! excellent pictures! The guy seems to be in the right place at the right time!
“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.'”
Awesome shots.
WOW, simply awesome! Glad I wasn’t there to see it up close!
These do look familiar.
A friend from Alberta emailed me some from a storm in southern Alta earlier this summer
As we’re looking at fascinating pix, I came across this optical illusion that reminded me of New Orleans today:
http://www.strangecosmos.com/content/item/7300.html
If they were real, they would make the cover of National Geographic – too they are fake. Nice photoshop work though!
Notice the light difference between pics 5 & 6.Taken 1 min apart.Wherever it is,the sun sure moves awful fast!Nice cropping job.
Kate, the photographs are magnificent.
When faced with such a phenomenon, one can scarcely avoid the specter of intelligent design behind the laws of nature, and of course I have my own beliefs.
Is God a tyrant or a poet? An artist or a despot?
The same force that washed out New Orleans protects a small, insignificant, fragile seashell. Who can explain such things? Intelligent design certainly seems apropos to the photos, and yet the same beautiful and cruel force would destroy a human city and slap aside a hospital as if it did not exist.
Religion, philosophy and science sometimes seem shallow and only point back once again to the riddle of the sphinx.
Sometimes it seems when religion and science argue over the existence of God, that the question they pose is really insignificant and serves only to conceal some great and majestic mystery that remains always …alive and inscrutable.
I don’t think the universe (the part we can see and the part that’s too far away to see) ever had a beginning. I think it always was. I think that the reason it’s the way it is is because that’s the way it is. After all, if it was a different way, it would be different. I don’t think there was nothing universal before the big bang, if, indeed, there was a big (local) bang. If god is not simply that timeless universal firmament, then how was god created?
The notion that the universe (even just the part we know something about) and the phenomenon known as life could be designed or created in unfathomable to me. The only way it could be is if it had to be, and so it is.
I think those storm photographs are certainly majestic, and they do stimulate the spiritual circuits in my brain. But for me the majesty is in the clouds, not in some theological or scientific theory of clouds.
The force that breached New Orleans was large, but as we’ve seen from that neutron star that is being ejected from the core of our galaxy at high velocity, at the end of the day, if we’re in the way of the behaviour of the universe, the universe wins. Earth could be smacked into an asteroid belt and the rest of the universe wouldn’t even notice. We’re just not that special. Well, at least, I’m not.
But here’s the thing. When it comes to how much I trust any model of the fundaments of existence: it’s not very high. Perhaps we’re all wrong, and the fundaments are something we’ve never even dreamed of. I sure don’t know. Are you sure you know?
What’s most interesting to me is that independent of whether or not Greg’s model is closer to reality or mine is, we both tend to agree (if I recall our previous exchanges correctly) that for pragmatic purposes, we’ve got to look out for ourselves. I extend King’s notion of judging people on their character, not the color of their skin, to include not the nature of their deity (nor their gender). So if it’s ok with you Greg, I’m still buyin’ if we ever get to a pub 😉
I’ve seem ’em before too. Heard they were taken in Northern Alberta, Grand Prairie area. Around the flood time.
The riddle of the Sphinx, the inscrutable,…. or the lesson pointing to the rules of basics that are the folly of man’s reckless impulse.
Like the folly of building a town-site in a depression without doing a sound land-fill first. The foolishness of depending on a feeble man-made device that is expected to defy nature.
In a way, there may have been some mercy shown by our bigger overseer entity, with Katrina coming sooner rather than later.
How much more cruel would this event be ten or twenty years into the future when thousands more people and homes would be destroyed.
The basic tenant of a sound foundation, in this case in the form of solid landfill, is once more proven.
The New, New Orleans, should be re-built on areas as they are back filled to about ten feet, but will more likely be fashioned of buildings with gaping parking areas at ground level and with the first floor at the 14 foot level. 73s TG
Weren’t all those storms supposed to pass over PM Paul Martin’s house; to impress upon him the woeful lack of preparedness of our Emergency Contingency Plans, in the event of significant catastrophe?
The pics are excellent. I’ve seen them before, I think on a link at Civitatensis. They were apparently taken in Southern Alberta in June/05.
Bow Before Nature
Kate has got some truly spectacular photos of a storm. In some of them it seems that a spaceship is
“Perhaps we’re all wrong, and the fundaments are something we’ve never even dreamed of. I sure don’t know. Are you sure you know?”
Hey Tony, if you’re buying, I’ll be happy to think whatever you say!
However I did use the word “inscrutable.” I think it’s pretty hard to arrive at something as substantive as a “model” and have it be inscrutable at the same time. I’m thinking more in terms of more of a Presence than a model.
The universe can be a damned mysterious place sometimes. I’ve never seen bigfoot, but my friend Richard and I both saw 2 UFOs while we were outside trying to adjust his kid’s telescope. We had them in view for about 45 minutes during a flap years ago in Houston, Texas.
I’ve also bumped into a couple of ghosts in my life, and I’ve seen some other crazy things.
I think the usual debates on this subject become tiresome and pedestrian. A jillion years ago, I was a philosphy major, and all of this “there is a god, there isn’t a god” eventually would result in me saying, “Who the f**k cares?” But I do in fact believe that the universe is ultimately intelligent.
Although I am with you in terms of having a very libertarian streak, if we can get either of our governments to give us a subsidy for our bar tab, I’ll be happy to tell you more.
Tony Guitar, despite my little personal seances with myself, I agree with you. I think that if New Orleans is be rebuilt it should be reconstructed 50 or 70 miles north of its present location and let development around the ocean be strictly confined to structures related to port activities.
Great Photos of the (Insert Location) Storm
Some amazing funnel cloud and storm photos got forwarded to me at work a few months ago, saying they were from an Alberta storm. Then, the same batch of photos arrived, described as a storm in Ontario. Apparently the photos are now being distributed as…
Greg, the fruit of debate. Yours is the *even better* plan. Keep it simple. Keep it solid. ‘3s TG
Kind of reminds me of the movie TWISTER with the tornado i mean this is however very real and in one of our small northern calfornia towns a small tornado did touchdown although tornados are a rather rare event for us here in the moutianus areas of the USA
Go to the snopes site, folks.
They’re taken by chaser Mike Hollingshead, and they’re a couple of years old. As a weather weenie I got them sent to me many times, hailed (pun intended) as being from Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and many other locations. Ask Mike where they’re from, but I suspect Nebraska and Kansas. Oh, and as to their suspected falsehood? Nope. They’re real pictures. God paints the sky like that sometimes. And needless to say, if you ever see clouds like that, unless you’re a chaser (like me) and that crazy, get out of the way–bad weather is coming.