Mike Charnick

@charnick.bsky.social

Meteorologist living & working in Colorado and Wyoming. Hobby photographer, mountaineer, trail runner & storm chaser.🌪 📸 🏔🏃‍♂️

I should not be surprised after the ‘winter’ we had, followed by a scorching summer, but Arapaho Glacier is almost gone. It’s a location I visit often as it’s not far from home, and it’s the first time I’ve seen it in such a dismal state.

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The ultimate Fort Collins thunderstorm photo - double CG lightning strike over Horsetooth Mountain! Can not believe I was lucky enough to capture this yesterday afternoon. If you look closely on the left, you can see the red glow of a tree burst/fire. 👌📸🏆 #COwx #lightning #monsoon

Twin lightning bolts strike Horsetooth Mountain west of Fort Collins

Denali: The roof of North America at 20,310’! It is said you don’t just climb Denali, you endure it. After a 3-week odyssey in one of the most inhospitable places on earth, I can think of no more accurate description. Climbing the West Buttress route & finishing under the midnight sun-unforgettable!

Fully occluded mesocyclone/couplet in the high desert of Nevada! May have just had a tornado in remote Elko county. As a former high desert dweller these events still fascinate me…

Incredibly shallow, post-frontal upslope easterly flow has funneled smoke from the Nebraska wildfires into Fort Collins this morning. Some of the highest PM2.5 concentrations in the world ATTM due to a lack of vertical dispersion - the cold frontal inversion is less than 1kft thick!

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Wyoming “cinema” on the way to work this morning…70-80mph surface synoptic winds causing havoc on I-25. Half a dozen flipped trucks and ‘dirt excavation’ in unplowed ranchland. Could see gap/downslope winds top out 90-100mph today! #wywx

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Full panorama of the 2025 Dickens/Wellfleet LP tornado+supercell! View is looking ESE up into the mesocyclone. The RFD clear slot is visible in the upper right, and in the distance on the bottom left you can even see a bit of the FFCB. Stationary supercell with deviant westerly tornado. Perfection!

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Greetings from Africa! This is Kevin. Everyone say hello to Kevin! This is one of only ~1,000 remaining Mountain Gorillas left in the world. We were lucky enough to spend some time with this amazing gorilla family in Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda.

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First light after the storm on the stunning Cuernos del Paine mountains - Chilean #Patagonia, 2025. A powerful late-spring blizzard dropped several meters of snow on the southern Andes during during the first days of our trip. Once the skies finally broke, the views were incredible! #Chile #sunrise

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So close and yet so far…just a bit west of a big-time South American dryline severe weather day. Looks like some supercells in there too. Would love to experience one of these in the future, but not on this trip!

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Incredible Sentinal-2 satellite imagery of #Melissa at peak intensity before landfall. In the cloud-free areas of the eye you can see the physical effect of the surface wind gradient (2nd image): chaotic whitecapped waves near center transition to extreme sea spray/linear streaking near the eyewall!

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#Comet #Lemmon last weekend, with both the ion and dust tails visible. The ion tail (thin one) was shocked by a solar storm the day before, resulting in a fractured look. 30x20s exposures at 600mm. Star trails in the b-round due to the comet itself moving over the ~10m of imaging. #astro

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Earlier this summer, an opportunity presented itself to climb the Montana state highpoint: Granite Peak in the Beartooth Range. This was my last of the Lower 48 "Big 3". A brutal 2-day push to bag the peak, what a beautiful reward to get to exist in some of the more remote wilderness in the US!#MTwx

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