Rainbow on the Colorado Plains: Photo Essay of a Gorgeous Evening Storm

I still spend quite a bit of time on the farm I grew up on, on the Eastern Plains of Colorado.

Last Friday, after a full day working, I was witness to one of the most beautiful storms I've seen yet. In this part of the country, we are prone to fantastical, enormous, breath-taking storms, but this one was pure ecstacy. It's colors were ever changing.

I tinkered about with my camera for a while beforehand, experimenting with the clouds and the sunset. The children were still out playing on their tricycles and peddle tractors, and the chickens had not gone to roost yet. They tip-toed about the yard, cocking their heads at the puddles from last night's rain, and looking like so many ladies lifting their petticoats above the muck.

At last it was time to wrangle the children for bed. After hustling them indoors and getting them down for the night, I looked out an eastern-facing window, and saw this:

I hustled back out in the sheeting rain to see if I could catch and keep a piece of this storm.

In three minutes, the colors had vanished and dusk was complete. Our storms rarely last long; they rise up fiercely, then fall back suddenly, tuckered out. This first squall lasted but fifteen minutes. I could still hear the storm breathing, like a cat in tall grass, and lightning played all across the east for several more hours. White and pink, yellow and blue, it flashed in sheets and claws and tongues, like a dragon partially hidden by the clouds.

Rain came periodically throughout the night, and the wind continued to scratch at the house corners and sigh at the windows. The yard next morning was a glory of puddles, and the chickens again tip-toed about, looking for insects in the mud.

Next time, perhaps I'll catch a tornado to share, or a good rousing hail.

Those can be beautiful, too.