Arizona-based photographer Mike Olbinski has been chasing the Southwest Monsoon for 7 years, but he has never seen a summer storm season quite like this one. Recently leaving his full-time job, Olbinski was able to devote more of his time to capturing the ever-changing and dramatic conditions that the monsoon provided.
Olbinski devoted 48 days to chasing the Southwest Monsoon, which resulted in over 17,000 miles driven…almost all of it in the Arizona. Last year, Olbinski was only able to chase for 31 days, due to the job that he held at home in Phoenix. The extra time on the road added over 45,000 frames captured from his 2014 chase, bringing his total to 105,000 total. On his blog, Olbinski talks about how the extra time and frames captured allows him more freedom to only include the best scenes in the final film.
What that means is I was able to stuff this new film with only of the best of the best. We missed out on some of the huge dust storms like I’ve captured in years past, but overall, I think this represents some of the best weather I’ve ever photographed in Arizona. There are stunning shelf clouds, gorgeous rain shafts, lots of blowing dust, tons of lightning, and even multiple mini-supercells/mesocyclones. The brief meso over Cottonwood at the 3:38 mark is one of my all-time favorites.
It is evident that Olbinski was made for this. I covered his last film, “The Chase” in June, and at the time, we thought it was one of the best storm-chasing films we had ever seen. That is until “Monsoon II”. The film is a Tour De Force, cumulating with one of the most insane closing scenes that I have ever seen.
I asked Olbinski what drives him to overcome the sheer amount of work that goes into a project of this magnitude. His answer speaks volumes about why he is one of the best storm photographers in the world.
The simple answer is…I can’t help it, I have to do it. I love doing this, it’s a passion, it’s sometimes an addiction…and it’s just part of me.
Check out more from Olbinski on his website, Facebook, and Instagram.
I was in Avondale when storms looked to be dying out, but way out west I thought I saw a base just hanging out there…so I went for it. Finally as we neared Tonopah the cloud tops went up and the bolts started raining down. One of the most incredible lightning shows I’ve seen. Lasted for 45 minutes, created strong dusty outflow and had some amazing colors.
A huge, powerful positive cloud-to-ground lightning strike lands around Gila Bend on September 13th, 2015. Positive strikes are 10 times more powerful than a normal one, and they tend to originate near the top of a thunderstom and can land up to 10 miles away. On this one you’ll notice the rain is actually off to the right of the photo, so this strike was well away from there. One of the deadly aspects of lightning.
I’ve been to the Grand Canyon over a dozen times now, but never before have I seen a sunset on fire like this. I went up there with hopes of storms and lightning after dark, but that’s almost an impossible ask when you just randomly pick a day to try. But at least I was treated to this amazing sky.
A distant thunderstorm rumbles and throws down tons of bolts west of the small community of Wilaha in northern Arizona.
A powerful thunderstorm that dropped heavy rain and pea-sized hail moves off over Dead Indian Canyon along the Little Colorado River. This canyon eventually connects to the Grand Canyon. As the storm departs, water runs through the desert and a stunning rainbow seems to disappear into the canyon itself.
A beautiful haboob rolls north into the Phoenix area on August 25th, 2015. The wall of dust originated to the south of Maricopa, but gained momentum as it blasted noth and new storms developed along the outflow edge.
The sun poked through some storms behind me for long enough to add some purple hues to the sky and show off a brief little rainbow. The lightning was intense and close despite it looking far away in the photo. A wide angle lens always makes for deceiving distances. The last bit of sun was lightning up the cholla just enough to make them pop a little.
This was a magical evening and I discovered later that perhaps there was a special reason for it. When I returned home after these storms died out…I discovered that a kind lady named Mary Kathleen Johnson quietly passed away around 5pm that day. This photo was taken two hours later. She was a lover of weather, of storms and of living beneath the gorgeous views of the Catalina Mountains. She was a huge fan of storm chasers and would watch myself and countless others as we live stream our chases. She was such a blessing to everyone. She would help us when we weren’t sure of the road network near her house. But mainly she had sent me countless messages of support, not about only my work, but about me personally and my family. I’d like to think that as she left this place, her gift to me at least was this storm and this lightning strike. And so I dedicate this image to you Mary…man you rest in peace.
An isolated thunderstorm right at sunset exploded west of Tonopah, Arizona on August 14th…putting on a lightning display that are the kind I dream about. Bolt after bolt, in all kinds of spots and looks. Toss in a little susnet colro and these are images I strive to obtrain all season long.
In the wee hours of June 3rd, 2015, I captured the most amazing lightning strike of my career. Photographed by Mike Olbinski at 12:50 AM.
There are very few words to describe June 30th, 2015 in southern Arizona. Not only did the monsoon start early this year, but a few days into it the weather intensified, cape increased and we have some abnormally high wind shear. That turned a normal monsoon chase into what was akin to being in the central plains. I saw at least two legit supercells, including this beast that came over the Santa Rita Mountains after being tornado warned an hour before near Whetstone. A completely amazing afternoon and evening of chasing…I wont soon forget it.