If you have ever been fortunate enough to watch a major storm form without damage to your person or your property, you know it’s an awe-inspiring sight. Storm chaser Chad Cowan has turned those opportunities into an epic art form.

Cowan is a photographer and aspiring filmmaker who has been chasing storms across America’s Tornado Alley over the past 10 years and 150,000 miles. This is Cowan’s epic video, “Fractal,” a super cut of high-def time-lapse supercell storm footage (“StormLapses”)shot during his wacky weather adventures. I am fascinated by storm videos, and I have watched a lot of them on YouTube, but I’ve never seen anything like Cowan’s work. And he’s not just a casual observer. He’s taken the time to understand the weather he’s documenting.

“Supercell thunderstorms are a manifestation of nature’s attempt to correct an extreme imbalance. The ever ongoing effort to reach equilibrium, or entropy, is what drives all of our weather, and the force with which the atmosphere tries to correct this imbalance is proportional to the gradient. In other words, the more extreme the imbalance, the more extreme the storm.”

After growing up in storm-ridden Kansas, the artist started storm chasing as soon as he got his driver’s license, and watching his footage, I can understand why. How could you possibly be surrounded by such magnificent power and not be affected by it?

Check out Cowan’s work on his website.

(Via)