Dark Clouds, Then Rain

I arrived home yesterday afternoon just as a dusky thunderstorm heaved over the Rocky Mountains.  The storm rapidly engulfed the entire valley and then the Elkhorn Mountains.  I stopped once on the drive through the ranchlands, stepped out into the peculiar calm before the coming rain and hail, and captured a photograph with my twice-as-smarter-than-me-phone.

 

By the time I arrived home, thunder had begun to rumble constantly from somewhere deep within the interior of the mountains to our west.  I retrieved my digital SLR camera and seized one more photograph of the lead stormcloud dragging overtop the prairie.  I stood out beside my house for only a minute or two before wind drove heavy rains and hail down against the entire expanse and forced me inside.

--Mitchell Hegman