“Painted Desert Thunderstorm”

Greg captured this solitary “Painted Desert Thunderstorm” on an early-morning flight from Flagstaff to Santa Fe. (Click on the photo to see a larger image.)

Unlike many parts of the country where convective cells are often cloaked in clouds, it’s a special feature of the dry Southwest that thunderstorms dominate the sky in solitude or line up to deliver dramatic walls of slate-grey rain.

This photograph was taken on a flight associated with Greg’s Flying Carpet column, “Perfect Use of an Airplane.”