By: By Edecio Martinez
Published: October 30,2013
Photographer
Marko Korosec risks his life capturing breathtaking images of some of
the world's most brutal lightning storms. His secret? Getting absurdly
close to the action.
“It’s often hard to understand the
work we do and our interest in severe, dangerous storms,” Korosec said
in an interview with Caters News Agency. “On the one hand, they are
beautiful and photogenic. On the other hand they regularly kill people.”
Based
in the small village called Zirje in southwest Slovenia, the
31-year-old storm chaser has narrowly avoided being struck by lightning,
and gets so close that at times he gets knocked over by the lightning’s
shock wave.
“I’ve been close to lightning strikes
several times, especially when observing them over open fields or when
I’m on the cliffs above the coastal areas,” Korosec explained. “It’s
quite an interesting feeling when lightning hits next to you and you can
feel the [shock] wave hitting your body."
(MORE: Eerie Cemeteries Left to Nature)
Lightning expert Dr. Martin Uman
states that the most common form of a shock wave happens when air
heated intensely by the lightning to about 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit
expands faster than the speed of sound, building up a pressure wave
that’s perhaps 100 times normal atmospheric pressure.
“According
to Uman, the shock wave [spreads] roughly … 10 yards away from the
lightning channel,” Weather.com meteorologist Jon Erdman states. “Given
the pressure difference, you can be knocked down by the shock wave, not
to mention damage to your hearing from the initial clap of thunder.”
Korosec began photographing extreme weather in 1998, according to his website.
He believes chasing and researching lightning using a ground point of
view can “help others to be safer during deadly storms” and provides
footage to assist meteorologists and other storm chasers. But Erdman
explains that chasing lightning can be riskier than tornado chasing and
discourages anyone from getting that close.
“It is very
dangerous to attempt to position close to lightning,” Erdman explains.
“You cannot predict precisely when and where the next cloud-to-ground
lightning strike may occur in a thunderstorm. Furthermore, the lightning
strike may hit a nearby object, then conduct to you if, say, you’re
standing near an antenna, tree, or metal pipe.”
Though
Korosec claims safety is his number-one priority, the daredevil has
faced serious peril before, nearly escaping death while trapped in a car
chasing a massive hail storm in Montana. “The road network was deadly
and we couldn’t escape and got caught by the intense hail and winds,”
Korosec recalls. “Baseball-sized hail and flying debris started to
bombard our car. It was terrifying, the terrible sound of the hail
slamming into the car was so loud we couldn’t even hear each other
talk.”
Korosec walked out alive. Unfortunately, his car
did not; it was completely destroyed. But despite his near-death
experiences, Korosec doesn’t plan to give up this type of photography
any time soon.
“I will never stop chasing storms,”
Korosec told the news agency. “Mother nature fascinates me and makes me
want to conduct more and more research to try and understand storms and
make everyone safer against their deadly power.”
The collection
above features several of Korosec’s stunning images with additional
lightning shots snapped by other photographers. For more on Korosec’s
nature photography, visit his website at weather-photos.net.
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