Storm chaser and photographer Kelly DeLay battled “massive hailstones” in the US to get close enough for the snap of a lifetime.
It was worth it.
“Two tornadoes under a massive supercell in Simla, CO!” he tweeted with the pic yesterday.
DeLay told us this storm was taken outside of Simla, Colorado on June 4, around 7pm local time.
“I had chased this storm out of Denver driving up from Dallas, Texas, where I live for the week,” he said.
“When I chase storms, I like to stay back for the most part so I can see structure. I am interested in the whole picture not just if it produces a tornado.
“Because of the road network, I chose to come up from the back side of the storm, which put me into the hail, but what a view!”
Other reports say the storm produced at least four tornadoes, one of which has since been reported as damaging several homes. And two of them are in DeLay’s shot.
“The tornado on the left was anticyclonic, the cone tornado on the right was cyclonic, and it was persistent,” he said.
“This was a beautiful storm, very large and powerful obviously.
“From the moment I was on the storm the cone tornado was on the ground, I chased up a dirt road that turned to mud. I was on the storm and close for about 30 minutes, then had to turn back because the road was so bad.”
DeLay is used to to achieving great things with cameras. His Clouds 365 Project won a Webby for the Best Personal Blog/Website in 2012.
He let us publish another amazing shot he captured from the 2015 storm season so far:
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