The first few weeks of the 2019 monsoon were just a primer for the heart of the season. As my first season of living in the Southwest US continued, I was taking a lot of hard lessons to heart. It seemed that as I learned, the misses on epic lightning continued to mount.

When it comes to monsoon thunderstorms, there are some key differences in chasing them versus storms on the plains. First, they don’t last nearly as long. Targeting where a storm is results in getting blasted by outflow as the storm dies. At that point you typically have to turn around and go back where you came from to wait on storms. Chasing east of storms works sometimes, other times…not so much.

And most of all, when it comes to capturing lightning its all about the instability. In part II of the 2019 monsoon storm chase, we continue to learn lessons in seeking out lightning from thunderstorms of the monsoon in New Mexico.