By late afternoon, a cluster of thunderstorms had formed north of Durango, and was moving east into the San Juans northwest of Pagosa Springs. I headed up Piedra Road, and was able to get some pictures. Thunderstorms with winter precipitation are rather photogenic because of the wavy, whispy appearance of the snow and graupel as they fall from the cloud base - quite different from the straight precipitation shafts you get with rain. And when I saw some bright CG lightning, I decided to get out the lightning trigger, and thus even got one picture with lighting in it. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the day:
As I started to work my way back, the precipitation cleared enough to see that a little snow had accumulated in the higher altitudes of the mountains:
With the rather warm ground and high sun angle, it wasn't much even up there, but there did appear to be a little.
With the prolonged dry spell, today was the first time I had seen lightning since May 1, and that was in Texas. Unfortunately, we got only a brief spritz of rain at home, not even enough to wet the sidewalk.
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