I often feel fortunate to live in Australia. We have a whole continent to ourselves, we are relatively free from earthquakes and extreme weather, and wars have mostly taken place far from us. And we have friendly cousins close by across the Tasman Sea.

Things like supercell storms happen in other places, and that’s fine with me – I don’t think I’d like to have one of these things bearing down on me. Wikipedia says, “A supercell is a thunderstorm that is characterized by the presence of a mesocyclone: a deep, persistently rotating updraft. Of the four classifications of thunderstorms (supercell, squall line, multi-cell, and single-cell), supercells are the least common and have the potential to be the most severe. Supercells are often isolated from other thunderstorms, and can dominate the local climate up to 32 kilometres away.”

The time-lapse video below was made by storm-chasing wedding photographer (his description) Mike Olbinski on June 3 near Booker in Texas. The roiling clouds look ominous and threatening… and I’m glad I wasn’t there!

A supercell near Booker, Texas from Mike Olbinski on Vimeo.

Mike talks about the storm, and how he filmed it, in two blog posts Timelapse of a supercell near Booker, Texas and A supercell near Booker, Texas.

In July 2011 a huge dust storm rolled across Mike’s hometown, Phoenix, Arizona, and he caught that on video, too:

Imagine how that much dust must choke everything in its path!

You can read more about Mike in The monsoon becoming big business.