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."
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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 atweather-photos.net.
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