Extreme Weather Photos #Part2

Surf’s Up, Hawaii

Photograph by Eugene Tanner, AP

Surfers ride a huge wave at Waimea Bay, Hawaii, during the 2009 Eddie Aikau memorial surf contest.
To honor its fearless namesake, the competition is held only in extreme conditions. Contestants had been waiting five years for the surf to pound Oahu’s North Shore this aggressively.

(Watch someone surf one of the biggest waves ever recorded: Video: Monster Wave.)

 

Waterspout and Lightning, Florida

Photograph by Fred K. Smith, National Geographic

A waterspout parallels a lightning strike over Lake Okeechobee in Florida. A sister of the tornado, waterspouts are generally less powerful.

(Watch waterspouts in action.)

Read more about photographing lightning in National Geographic magazine's August feature about storm chaser and Nat Geo Emerging Explorer Tim Samaras. He uses the world's fastest high-resolution camera—weighing in at 1,600 pounds—to document nature's electrical sky shows.

(Related: “Tornadoes, Lightning in Rare Video.”)

Waves, Cape Town

Photograph by Michael McSweeney, Your Shot

A huge wave crashes over a sea wall during a storm in Cape Town, South Africa. Waves are the result of wind traveling across water. As it moves, wind energy is transferred to lakes and oceans and manifests in ripples and swells.
A tsunami is a series of waves typically caused by large undersea earthquakes, landslides, or volcanic eruptions that displace the water.
(See pictures of tsunami damage and the winners of National Geographic magazine's My Shot weather photo contest.)

Approaching Storm, Kansas

Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic

A thunderstorm appears to be on a collision course with a crescent moon in this photo of the Kansas sky .
The ancient Greek god Zeus was said to control lightning, but today we know lightning comes from a difference in electrical charge between clouds and the ground or among clouds.
(See more images of lightning and create your own inclement weather in our interactive.)

Softball-Size Hail, Missouri

Photograph from Weatherstock/Corbis

Adding insult to injury, this dangerously large hail rode in on the coattails of a tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri, in 2011.
Hail emerges from storm clouds only after repeatedly tumbling up and down within the cloud. The stronger the updraft in the cumulonimbus, the more layers of ice will form around a single frozen raindrop, until it becomes too heavy and falls to the ground.
(Watch a research team get caught in a baseball-size hailstorm.)

Hurricane Damage, Alabama

Photograph by Robert Madden, National Geographic

An Alabama store owner assesses the damage after Hurricane Frederic ravaged Dauphin Island, and his business, in 1979.
The Category 3 storm made landfall on the evening of September 12 with winds recorded at 145 miles per hour and an up-to-15-foot storm surge. It then made its way inland, causing a $2.3-billion trail of destruction and five deaths.

(See more hurricane pictures and learn how these storms start in Hurricanes 101.)

See #Part1 #Part3

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